Tag: rice

What’s for supper? Vol. 447: Mark me down as phojascent

Happy Friday! Let’s get the heck to it! Here’s what we ate this week. 

Oh wait! I forgot I haven’t showed you Halloween costumes yet. Okay, we had one Chestburster (from Alien):

one Rarity: 

one Red Hood: 

one Edward Elric from Full Metal Alchemist:

and of course one Bender, complete with cigar:

The three older kids made their costumes completely on their own (and at the last minute, I should add. The original plan was for them and two friends to be different versions of David Bowie, but that fell apart, sadly; so they had to throw these together). Benny made her entire Edward Elric costume by herself except for the shirt (which is a T-shirt with duct tape on it), including that incredible articulated arm; and Corrie made her entire Bender costume except for the body, which I started and she finished. She was particularly proud of her tidy little robot feet, which stayed on all night.

So I would say the costume torch has officially been passed! It stopped raining in time, they got tons of candy, and everyone was happy. Whew. 

SATURDAY
Leftovers and mozzarella sticks

Just a regular shopping and chores day, as far as I can recall. I was in a state about the messy house, so I gave the kids pre-cleaning assignments while I was out, and they really did them. This big kid thing is pretty great. 

For supper, we had leftovers, and mozzarella sticks for the frozen food bonus. Looks like I chose chicken soup with rice, caprese salad, and honey battered chicken. 

It was a non-HDO All Saints Day, and I’m ashamed to say we did absolutely nothing to mark it. Sorry, saints. 

That evening, I had already told the kids we’d be doing a deep cleaning on Sunday, so before bed I made an apple pie and the dough for soul cakes, so we’d be able to still have some good food after a busy day. 

SUNDAY
Beef pho, apple pie

When we got home from Mass, I got some broth going for pho, and cut out and baked the soul cakes. Here’s that recipe:

Jump to Recipe

These are not super sweet, and are kind of spicy and old-fashioned tasting, and they are much much better when they are fresh out of the oven and still soft. 

I did tell kids about the history of soul cakes (kids would go door-to-door singing a song begging for cakes, and they would pray for someone’s soul in return. This is apparently the origins of trick-or-treating), and then I said they had to pick someone dead and pray for them, and then they could have one skull cake (an un-prayed-for soul) and one winged cake (a soul released from purgatory). They were very relieved with this deal, because they thought I was going to make them sing. 

Then oh boy, did we clean. The kids tackled the living room, dining room, kitchen, stairs, and landing, including floors and woodwork, and I did the “tool area,” which is the geographically lowest point of the house and collects so much miscellaneous junk and just plain dirt, you wouldn’t believe it, and it was also full of pieces of dog food the dog likes to fling around just to keep his spirits up. It had gotten to the point where, just to get from the kitchen to the back door, you had to writhe around like you’re doing the merengue. But not in the fun way. 

So while the kids did their part, I cleaned and organized and swept and scrubbed furiously and sorted ruthlessly, and got rid of something like 200 dresses that I was finally ready to admit nobody fits into anymore. Some of them were dresses all eight of my girls have worn! I was very brave.

(Actually, I remember talking about this before — getting rid of clothes that have heavy nostalgic value — and a younger mom was like, “oh no, are you saying it never gets easier?” and I was like, “Yeah, sorry, it just stays hard.” But it turns out it does get easier! I think it’s probably the Prozac, honestly. Also I do that goofy “thank you for your service” thing if I have to get rid of something with especially fond memories attached, and it really helps!) 

I shan’t show an “after” picture of the area I cleaned, because it will look too much like other people’s “before,” but it’s a massive, massive improvement. You can just walk through it like a normal human being. Hooray!

The kids also did a great job cleaning, and it feels so so much better in here. 

It also smelled great, with the pho broth simmering away. Here’s the recipe I followed. Real pho is made with a bone broth, but I honestly figured I was already pushing my luck with an unfamiliar food, so I figured this would be sort of entry-level pho, and if they liked it, we could go from there. A phojascent soup, if you will. Beef is a big treat these days, so I was pretty excited about that part. 

In the morning, I had put the hunk of beef in the freezer and asked Damien to sharpen a knife for me, and I sliced the meat up as thinly as I possibly could

(it’s much easier to cut thin if it’s slightly frozen) and prepped a bunch of toppings: Scallions, cilantro, thinly-sliced onion, lime, jalapeños, and Thai basil. 

Right before supper, I turned up the heat on the broth and quickly cooked some thin rice noodles. I tried to keep them in nest shapes, but they just unwound and merged, oh well. 

The idea is everyone gets a piping-hot bowl of broth with noodles in it, and then you add the thinly-sliced beef right into your bowl, and it cooks right in front of you. Then you put whatever you want on top. I chose everything, plus some sriracha. 

Here’s my bowl, before the meat has entirely finished cooking. 

Some of the kids were uncomfortable with the rareness of the beef (it did cook more than in the picture above!) so they put their bowls in the microwave, and that did the trick. 

Holy wow, it was delicious. I know this is dreadfully inauthentic and so on, but it was so good. Light and savory at the same time, and delightfully filling. I think almost everyone liked it, which hardly ever happens! We’re definitely making this again.

I glazed and baked the pie in the afternoon, and it was still warm after supper, so that was also popular. 

This is probably the flakiest crust I’ve ever made. I ended up freezing the butter for way longer than I usually do (usually I chill it for half an hour or so, and then grate it into the flour and salt), but this time it was really frozen solid. That must have been what made the difference. 

Here is my pie crust recipe. 

Jump to Recipe

Works every time!

MONDAY
Butter chicken, basmati rice, terrible flatbread

Monday I was a little annoyed at myself because I was planning butter chicken, and I had bought chicken thighs with the bone and skin on, so I had to process all that. Sonny was . . . . the opposite of annoyed. He was enraptured. I didn’t actually even give him any scraps, because there has been entirely too much throwing up in this house lately, but I think he still enjoyed the afternoon. Just being near meat is good. He’s kind of into the whole agony/ecstasy thing. 

I had my own little agony going, because I had bought a sack of chappati flour

but the “gluten free” part didn’t really register with me until I made the dough, according to the instructions on the bag. Like, when I’m cooking new foods, I always keep an open mind. Maybe that’s what it’s supposed to look like! Or maybe it’s my fault, because this is my first time!

Well, sometimes it’s just because it’s gluten free, and that’s just a sad state of being. The dough is on the left here: 

As you can see, I decided to go in a different direction, so I made a double batch of this sort of generic no-yeast flatbread from Recipe Tin Eats. That’s the dough on the right. 

It’s just flour, salt, butter and milk, and you fry it in an ungreased pan. I did try that, but I burned the hell out of it, so I tried greasing the pan.

Ladies and gentlemen, they still sucked. Really, just terrible, all twelve of them.I don’t know where I went wrong, but these were truly disgusting. I guess not as bad as they would have been if I had used the gluten-free chappati flour, which tasted of lentils and miscellaneous grit, but still inedible. Oh well! Anybody want an opened sack of gluten free chappati flour that has regular wheat flour sprinkled all over it because that’s how I bake? Let me know. 

The butter chicken was fabulous, luckily. I made a big pot of basmati rice and garnished it with cilantro, and it was just wonderful. 

I use the Recipe Tin Eats recipe, and I’ve never found a reason to try a different recipe. 

My site is being weird, so if the recipe link above isn’t working, here it is:

Butter Chicken

I also roasted the pumpkin seeds the kids had saved from carving jack-o’-lanterns. I did reserve the seeds from the one massive one, and I’m air drying those out to be planted in the spring. The rest, I lightly oiled, spread in a single layer, and toasted in the oven at 300 degrees, stirring them occasionally. I think it took about forty minutes. Then I sprinkled them with kosher salt, and they were yummo. 

And that was Monday!

TUESDAY
Grilled ham and cheese, chips

Tuesday, I was supposed to leave early and take a kid to a medical appointment far away, and I felt so sick and lousy that I just cancelled it. I’m working on introducing myself to the idea that I don’t have to force myself to do every hard thing that presents itself, but can sometimes take an easier route, like rescheduling an appointment. It feels weird, but it was definitely the right call. We had a simple supper of grilled ham and cheese with chips, and in the evening I started a big hunk of pork with its dry rub (a cup of salt and a cup of sugar, rub it all over, and bag it overnight). 

WEDNESDAY
Bo ssam with basmati rice, kiwi and mango

In the morning, I cut up a bunch of kiwis and mangos, which is just a lovely combination

and around 12:30, I put the brined pork in the oven. I do the bare bones version of this recipe,

okay, again the linking is not working. Ugh. Here is the link:

Momofuku Bo Ssam (Korean Roast Pork)

So you rub a cup of salt and a cup of sugar all over the pork shoulder and let it sit overnight, and then you put the pork in a 300 oven for like six hours. Then just before you serve it, you crank the oven up to 500 and slather brown sugar, cider vinegar, and salt on the top, and let it brown up. 

I know I always say it, but this is the lowest-effort, highest-yield recipe I know. It turns out absolutely scrumptious every time, and you barely have to do anything. There is a sauce that goes with it, but I rarely make it, because it’s already so juicy and tender and good. 

I reheated the leftover basmati rice, and put out some lettuce leaves and the cut-up fruit, and wow, it was a perfect meal. 

The idea is you tear off some lettuce and use it grab up some rice and some shreds of meat, and you make a little bundle for personal gobbling. Repeat. IT’S SO GOOD. I like having fruit as a side for this meal, because the meat is outrageously salty, and it’s good to have something juicy to sooth the tongue a bit. 

Everyone likes this meal, and I deliberately made a giant pork shoulder so there would be leftovers for Thursday. 

THURSDAY
Pork fried rice and wontons

Thursday we had to get up early to get to a flu and covid shot clinic. Very relieved to get that done! Then we got donuts and I brought the kids to school and prepped supper. I cut up the leftover pork, defrosted some peas and a bag of cooked rice I had stuffed in the freezer last week, and chopped up some onions and garlic. Sadly, I had used up all the fresh ginger for the pho, so when it was time to cook, I had to use powdered ginger. 

Here’s my basic fried rice recipe:

Jump to Recipe

When I got home, I made a pot of chicken broth from bouillon and cooked some frozen wontons in it. 

Not a spectacular meal, but it was tasty and popular and cheap, and took probably 20 minutes to cook. My meal planning skills have been in overdrive lately, and it’s been really gratifying to make stuff ahead of time, and use leftovers, and so on. My big secret is not having little kids hanging off my legs while I cook. I cannot emphasize what a difference this makes. I do now have a dog doing his Y E A R N I N G thing in the kitchen while I cut stuff up, but it’s not nearly as disruptive as toddlers breaking and trying to eat glass while I have raw pork on my hands, for instance. Truly, I don’t know how I survived that long, long period of my life. No regrets, but no desire to do it again, either!

FRIDAY
Spaghetti

Just reglear old spaghetti. 

I know I have a bunch of people who are waiting for me to get back to them, so if that’s you, I haven’t forgotten, I promise! Sorry about that! 

And that’s-a my story. Shall pray for you all at adoration in a few hours, if I manage to stay awake. 

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Soul cakes

Servings 18 flat cakes the size of large biscuits

Ingredients

  • 1 cup butter, chilled
  • 3-3/4 cup sifted flour
  • 1 cup white sugar
  • 1/4 tsp nutmeg
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 1 tsp ginger
  • 1 tsp allspice (can sub cloves)
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 tsp cider vinegar (can sub white vinegar)
  • 4-6 Tbsp milk
  • powdered sugar to sprinkle on top

optional:

  • raisins, currants, nuts, candied citrus peels, etc.

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 350

  2. Put the flour in a large bowl. Grate the chilled butter on a vegetable grater and incorporate it lightly into the flour.

  3. Stir in the sugar and spices until evenly distributed.

  4. In a smaller bowl, beat together the eggs, vinegar and milk. Stir this into the flour mixture until it forms a stiff dough.

  5. Knead for several minutes until smooth and roll out to 1/4 thick.

  6. Grease a baking pan. Cut the dough into rounds (or other shapes if you like) and lay them on the pan, leaving a bit of room in between (they puff up a bit, but not a lot). If you're adding raisins or other toppings, poke them into the top of the cakes, in a cross shape if you like. Prick cakes with fork.

  7. Bake for 20-25 minutes until very lightly browned on top.

  8. Sprinkle with powdered sugar while they are warm

 

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Basic pie crust

Ingredients

  • 2-1/2 cups flour
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1-1/2 sticks butter, FROZEN
  • 1/4 cup water, with an ice cube

Instructions

  1. Freeze the butter for at least 20 minutes, then shred it on a box grater. Set aside.

  2. Put the water in a cup and throw an ice cube in it. Set aside.

  3. In a bowl, combine the flour and salt. Then add the shredded butter and combine with a butter knife or your fingers until there are no piles of loose, dry flour. Try not to work it too hard. It's fine if there are still visible nuggets of butter.

  4. Sprinkle the dough ball with a little iced water at a time until the dough starts to become pliable but not sticky. Use the water to incorporate any remaining dry flour.

  5. If you're ready to roll out the dough, flour a surface, place the dough in the middle, flour a rolling pin, and roll it out from the center.

  6. If you're going to use it later, wrap it tightly in plastic wrap. You can keep it in the fridge for several days or in the freezer for several months, if you wrap it with enough layers. Let it return to room temperature before attempting to roll it out!

  7. If the crust is too crumbly, you can add extra water, but make sure it's at room temp. Sometimes perfect dough is crumbly just because it's too cold, so give it time to warm up.

  8. You can easily patch cracked dough by rolling out a patch and attaching it to the cracked part with a little water. Pinch it together.

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Basic stir fried rice

This is a very loose recipe, because you can change the ingredients and proportions however you like

Ingredients

  • cooked rice
  • sesame oil (or plain cooking oil)
  • fresh garlic and ginger, minced
  • vegetables, diced or shredded (onion, scallion, peas, bok choy, carrots, sugar snap peas, cabbage, etc.)
  • brown sugar
  • raw or cooked shrimp, or raw or cooked meat (pork, ham, chicken), diced
  • soy sauce
  • oyster sauce
  • fish sauce
  • eggs

Instructions

  1. In a very large pan, heat up a little oil and sauté the ginger and garlic for a few minutes. If you are using raw meat, season it with garlic powder and ginger powder and a little soy sauce, add it to the pan, and cook it through. If you are using shrimp, just throw it in the pan and cook it.

  2. Add in the chopped vegetables and continue cooking until they are cooked through. If you are using cooked meat, add it now.

  3. Add the brown sugar and cook, stirring, until the brown sugar is bubbly and darkened.

  4. Add in the cooked rice and stir until everything is combined.

  5. Add in a lot of oyster sauce, a medium amount of soy sauce, and a little fish sauce, and stir to combine completely.

  6. In a separate pan, scramble the eggs and stir them in. (Some people scramble the eggs directly into the rest of the rice, but I find it difficult to cook the eggs completely this way.)

  7. If you are using cooked shrimp, add it at the end and just heat it through.

What’s for supper? Vol. 444: And don’t forget to put garlic on my grave

Happy Friday! in haste, in haste, for this is day two of me and Damien putting in a new roof, which we hope to finish by Sunday. It’s a small area, about 115 square feet, and only one storey up, but it’s something we’ve never done before, so I’m pretty impressed with us so far. (If you are wondering how one motivates oneself to take on a project like this, it helps to have no choice, and that’s my whole advice.)

Here is what we ate this week!

SATURDAY
Leftovers and I think pizza pockets

I myself had leftover chicken biryani with extra raisins and almonds, and it was yum dot com. 

SUNDAY
Vermonter sandwiches, fries

Sunday we made our annual trip to Wellwood Orchard in Vermont, and first we stopped at the cemetery to visit my parents’ grave. We said a decade and I planted some crocuses (I’ve planted various things over the last few years, including roses and lilacs, and they keep mowing them down. It’s very Claremont) and, just because I thought it was funny, some garlic. My parents didn’t agree on lots of things, but they certainly had similar views about garlic. (= It is good.)

We had a lovely time picking apples. Bunch of photos here: 

 

The kids are old enough that nobody insisted on each having their own separate little bag, so we got two half-bushel bags and filled them up, which is the same amount of apples as lots of little bags for about half the price. It’s a little late in the season, so there weren’t tons and tons of apples, but we did get some nice big ones. Nothing like a very in-season apple! It’s like a different fruit from what you get the rest of the year. 

For supper, we had Vermonter sandwiches, which is toasted sourdough bread, sliced chicken or turkey, sharp cheddar, green apple, bacon, and honey mustard. The meat I had was an entire frozen turkey breast (99 cents a pound, could not turn it down), but I made the mistake of slicing it first and then roasting it, rather than the other way around, so it kinda tried up. It was still semi-frozen in the morning and I really wanted to prep it ahead of time so we could eat as soon as we got back. But we all came home hungry, so it was fine. 

MONDAY
Honey soy chicken wings, coconut rice, sesame broccoli 

Monday the kids had the day off for Indigenous People’s day, and I fulfilled my promise to get to work on Corrie’s Halloween costume. 

Any guesses what this is going to be? She made the mask/head (not pictured) herself. 

She also made this unrelated mask

and was somewhat offended when I jumped in alarm, but then I showed her the picture, and had to agree, it was alarming. 

Supper was a great plan but turned out a tiny bit disappointing. Chicken wings were on sale (1.99/lb) so I got a bunch and made this marinade from Recipe Tin Eats. She specifically mentions that they are sticky, and that it can be very disappointing when chicken wings don’t turn out sticky, so she shows you how to achieve stickiness (pouring off the liquid from the cooked chicken, and then basting it with the marinade three times). I followed the directions exactly, but they really just didn’t turn out sticky. 

They were fine, just not amazing. 

I also made a bunch of coconut rice, also using a Recipe Tin Eats recipe. In this one, she promises it will be fluffy, not gluey, and I’ve made this recipe before and it really does turn out good. You make it in the oven. Then I made a tray of broccoli (just some sesame oil, soy sauce, I think garlic powder, and sesame seeds) and I didn’t really plan who was going to be in the oven when at what temperate, so it kind of baked, which is not ideal.

So overall, a decent meal, but I was bummed because I was expecting it to be spectacular. I made up for it by eating about a cubic yard of coconut rice. 

TUESDAY
Pizza

Tuesday I don’t even remember what I was doing — I think maybe I picked up a big bunch of materials at Home Depot, among other things — but I was completely exhausted by the time we got home from school, and I was so delighted with myself for having made three pizzas in the morning. So then I just about wept when Corrie reminded me there was an open house and pumpkin carving at the school at 5. But I got myself together and put my shoes back on and we went, and it was actually lovely.

 

I finally met her new teacher, who turns out to be a former homeschooler, so that explains a thing or two! (Like why they are reading Beowulf and why Corrie was researching the history of the Angles).

Damien got the pizzas in the oven and it was hot and ready when we got home, and then I collapsed like a bunch of broccoli. 

WEDNESDAY
Burgers, chips, raw vegetables

Wednesday I did a bunch of fall yard work. I composted some of the garden beds, planted a bunch of seed garlic and the nine peach pits we prepared, and mulched it all with duck hay. Still gotta mulch the strawberries, peach saplings, and rhubarb. Here’s a picture of what I did, because this post is kind of low on pictures!

Oof, it’s getting so grey and drab and chilly out there. 

I also did some more chimpy hardscaping in front, and planted a ton of spring bulbs in front and in back — daffodils, tulips, crocuses, alliums, and some kind of purple and orange fluttery-looking flower, I forget what it’s called. And mulched it all. 

Oh, do I hate planting bulbs in the fall. You’d think it would be an encouraging act of hope, staking out a claim for tomorrow, doing what you can to put your trust in a brighter future and so on. And it is that, but it feels awful, just futile. Fall is just tough. Everything is dead or dying, everything smells old and rotten, the birds are leaving, everything is leaning and weary and worn out. Plus I always manage to kneel in dog poop while I’m planting, and this year was no exception. But I got those mofos into the ground, and maybe they will even grow, who knows. 

I knew Thursday was going to be super busy, so I made supper Wednesday evening. 

Looking very promising. The recipe calls for boneless, skinless chicken thighs, but I was using turkey breast (the second whole turkey breast I got. This one was more suited for my purposes). 

THURSDAY
Chicken and dumplings

So Thursday we started on the roof. We didn’t completely know how damaged it was under the shingles, so I was pretty nervous about what we might find. We spread some tarps on the ground, climbed up, and started pulling the shingles and flashing away. It was nippy up there! Sunny but windy. 

About an hour into it, I heard traffic slowing down, and saw that cars were having to avoid my giant inflated fried egg that had blown into the road, and we decided that we are dumb enough to think we can do roofing, but we don’t need to compound that by getting sued by some driver who has whiplash because of our escaped inflated egg. So I climbed down and YOU KNOW WHAT? Climbing up a ladder is kind of scary, but nowhere near as scary as climbing down a roof and turning yourself around to get onto a ladder to climb down it! But I retrieved the egg, and we got all those shingles off

The roof underneath turned out to be rotten in the spots we expected, but quite a bit of it is sound. We talked to my brother, who is a builder, and he affirmed that we can definitely do this thing, and gave us some good advice about where the water is probably coming in and what to do about it. Very encouraging! I won’t share any pictures because I’m in no frame of mind for the internet to tell me we’re doing it all wrong.

I went out to pick up some more caulk and a tool to remove siding, and some more tarps, and then I picked up the kids while Damien started in removing the rotten wood. When I got home, I heated up the chicken I had made the previous evening.

I guess you would call it a chicken stew. It is this chicken and dumpling recipe from Sip and Feast, and when I got back, I made the dumpling dough, which calls for butter, milk, AND sour cream. This is an insanely rich recipe, and my only complaint is that I cooked the dumplings at least twice as long as recommended, and they still didn’t completely cook through, and were kind of damp. 

But I just had to serve it eventually, and it really was delicious

and, as I hoped, a very tasty, cozy, and nourishing meal after a chilly day on the roof. Damien and I thought it was great, although if I make it again, I may skip the peas. The kids were not impressed, and most of them didn’t even try it. Oh well! At this point, I’m storing up recipes to make again when it’s just me and Damien in the house. 

FRIDAY
Mac and cheese

Damien just went off to Home Depot for lumber, and when he gets home, we’re gonna start pulling out old mousy insulation, pulling off siding, waterproofing and caulking, and start rebuilding trusses and decking. We got our hands on a roll of high-end self-adhering water and ice shield, and, well, we are at the age when we’re pretty excited about that.

I also have a doctor’s appointment so my stupid doctor can tell me it’s okay to keep taking my medicine, because look at me, I’m still alive, which we definitely wouldn’t be able to determine vie telehealth. In anticipation of this visit, I have carefully arranged to gain ten pounds since our last visit, so I’m looking forward to this. 

I did find one final head of garlic in the garden, which I missed before. So, in answer to your question: Yes, I do think I’m the queen of the underground, but at least I’m willing to help with the insulation. And occasionally make undercooked dumplings. 

 

What’s for supper? Vol. 442: Behold, the steamer cometh

Happy Friday! I don’t remember why, but I even though I was quite busy this week, I planned a menu with some heavy and elaborate meals. A foolish but delicious error, and we have arrived at Friday, safe and sound and full of butter. 
Here’s what we had:

SATURDAY
Kids leftovers; adults pizza

Damien and I have been ships passing in the night lately, so we ditched the kids and spent some time being ships having pizza together. Sausage and mushroom, very good. 

SUNDAY
Hot dogs, fries

Sunday I got a ton of yard work done. I lugged a dozen cinderblocks out from the back (in fact they were from Damien’s Amazing Interchangeable Cinderblock Meat Altar Situation, which he no longer uses because he now has a real smoker and grill) and made a little retaining heap (can’t really call it a wall) for the flower bed in front of the house, which I’m going to fill in with soil and ferns.

Then Damien and I moved the enormous granite post to make a front step. It’s . . . still a work in progress. 

Then I looked at the house and realized if I was gonna plant more in front of it, I need to fix the siding first. The spot where the porch used to be attached looked like this:

Easy peasy, don’t have to get on a ladder or anything, and I had saved a bunch of siding from the porch, so I had matching siding and everything. EASY PEASY, I tell you. An idiot could do this!

Well, and idiot could do something. This is what I did:

This is the kind of job where I say reassuring things out loud to myself in the hearing of my kids, because the mother’s verbalized self-talk becomes their own internal voice as they mature, or something. Anyway, I said loudly several times that I’m good at other things, and it doesn’t really matter that much, because I’m going to find some really tall ferns. 

Then I planted a few more perennials I had gotten on clearance and lost the tags for, so I have no idea what they are, but I wish them well. Then Corrie and I spent some very pleasant time sorting flower seeds I’ve been collecting all summer, and then we split open the pits from our modest peach harvest.

I was very happy that we managed to get intact kernels from some of the really monstrously big peaches. Our technique was to put the pit on its edge on a rock, insert a flat-head screwdriver in the seam, and tap the screwdriver until it split, and then pry it open the rest of the way with the screwdriver. 

Obviously peaches can grow from a pit that hasn’t been opened, but taking the kernel out and just planting that increases the chances it will sprout. This weekend, I’ll plant them in pots in the ground covered with used duck straw, and in the spring, we should have a few seedlings.

Sophia had the day off (she’s commuting to college and working), so she made some yeasted cider donuts stuffed with apple filling. Superb. 

The plan for supper was Chicago-style hot dogs, with all the chopped vegetables and celery salt and whatnot, but it just didn’t seem worth it, especially since most of the family was out helping Moe move to his new apartment. And especially since granite posts are really heavy, you guys. At one point I heaved so hard that that first my back popped and then my ears popped, and the the word “hernia” popped into my head, so I stopped heaving. So we just had regular hot dogs and fries. 

I did make some ice cream: Two batches of strawberry and one of chocolate, using recipes from the Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream cookbook, which I highly recommend if you’re thinking of getting into homemade ice cream, which I highly recommend.

It was just supposed to be regular chocolate, but something went funny with the texture, and everyone assumed it was some kind of fancy chocolate chip

and I didn’t say a peep. 

MONDAY
Bacon chicken ranch wraps, chips

Monday was full of exhausting appointments, so I was happy to have an easy and popular dinner plan. I cooked some frozen chicken tenders and a few pounds of bacon, and served that on tortillas with chunkily shredded cheddar cheese, sliced tomatoes, and dressing. 

I had some kind of spicy honey mustard, but I think others chose ranch. It was pronounced “yum dot com.” 

TUESDAY
Oven-fried chicken, mashed potatoes, sorta-glazed carrots

Tuesday, you’ll never guess, we had another appointment. I was able to prep everything in the morning, though, so there wasn’t much left to do by suppertime. I started the chicken soaking in seasoned egg and milk for the oven-fried chicken

Jump to Recipe

and made some regular mashed potatoes, and put them in the slow cooker to stay warm. Then before supper, while the chicken was finishing up cooking, I made three pounds of glazed carrots in the oven using this recipe from Recipe Tin Eats. 

The chicken honestly looks kind of gross here, but in real life it was scrumptious, with real crackly skin and super-moist meat, full of flavor. I love this recipe. 

I made the carrots using bacon grease, and it did impart a very mild savory flavor, nothing to knock your socks off. These carrots are very popular with a couple people and everyone else thinks they’re okay.

WEDNESDAY
Garlic butter chicken bites, risotto, steamed broccoli

Wednesday I tried a new-to-me recipe from Sip and Feast, which combined four of my favorite words: Butter Garlic Chicken [and] Bites. 

It was a little time consuming, but that’s mainly because I made a triple recipe. It’s really pretty simple. You cut the chicken (boneless, either breasts or thighs) into chunks, season them, and dredge them in flour, and sear them in oil, and set that aside. Then you melt a ton of butter and cook a lot of garlic and red pepper flakes, then add a bunch of white wine and let the sauce reduce. Then you put the chicken back into the pan and heat it up. 

I wish I had seared the chicken a little darker, but wow, it was delicious. I mean how could it not be, with those ingredients. 

Earlier in the day, I made a pot of Instant Pot risotto. 

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I use more butter and cheese than the recipe calls for, but it’s good as is. Then right before some supper, I steamed some frozen broccoli. And it was a lovely meal. 

I didn’t count the calories because I’m a Lit major and I can’t count that high. 

THURSDAY
Bibimbap of sorts

Thursday I was very proud of myself for how fast I prepped supper. As soon as I got home from school drop-off, I chopped some vegetables, shredded and pickled some carrots, defrosted and sliced some meat, and set up the Instant Pot with rice, and set out sauces and sesame seeds, sprouts, spinach, and crunchy noodles, all in about eighteen minutes flat. 

I spent the rest of the day editing, and there was a huge amount of driving around doing this and that in the afternoon, but when I got home, all I had to do was press the “rice” button and throw the meat in a pan. When it was mostly cooked, I doused it with a lot of soy sauce and finished cooking it. Is this subtle or authentic or layered in flavor? No. But it was a damn fine meal all together, with lots of wonderful flavors and textures. 

Here’s the recipe for the pickled carrots:

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I honestly can’t remember the last time I enjoyed a meal this much. It’s probably because I got a lot of other things done that day, and I was especially relieved about having finished one project that’s been hanging over my head for months, and that added to my satisfaction; but also it’s just a damn fine meal. I like to put a layer of raw baby spinach on top of the rice but under the meat and fried egg, so the spinach wilts. Yum yum. 

It looked like there might be a frost that night, so I covered my basil, eggplant, and cucumbers, and picked the rest of the corn. I wasn’t expecting much (I had already done the main harvest, and these were the secondary ears of corn lower down on the stalk, and the corn from the second harvest that I shoved in the ground on a whim and didn’t bother to de-tassel), and it was indeed not much. 

For my own amusement, I lined them up in order of best to worst:

and then the other way around:

and that’s-a my corn! I read about corn development and I temporarily knew what had caused the various problems you see on the bad end of the corn spectrum, but I have since forgotten.  Maybe I should call in a prisoner that I’ve heard has some skill interpreting these things. (This is a Bible joke, but I’m too sleepy to finish writing it, sorry.)

Anyway, I think I’ll give this corn to the ducks, who have no skills of any kind, but they sure do like corn. 

In the evening, I drove out to pick up a chainsaw someone was giving away! I’m super excited. It’s my first chainsaw. I can tell the rest of the family is excited, too, because I heard one teenager say to the other, “Ho ho ho, now she has a chainsaw.” 

FRIDAY
Regular old spaghetti

ANOTHER appointment this morning, and that’s it for the week, whew. Because it’s Friday, but still. Whew. Damien and I were supposed to go remote camping for two days this weekend, but I think it’s our destiny to stay home and hang out, much to the dismay of the children, who were looking forward to . . .I don’t know what . . . when we go camping.  Poor things, it’s hard for them, because we’re so incredibly lax and undemanding when we’re home, it must be difficult coming up with some way to let it all hang out even further when we leave. I think they just watch MORE tv and eat ADDITIONAL candy. 

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Oven-fried chicken

so much easier than pan frying, and you still get that crisp skin and juicy meat

Ingredients

  • chicken parts (wings, drumsticks, thighs)
  • milk (enough to cover the chicken at least halfway up)
  • eggs (two eggs per cup of milk)
  • flour
  • your choice of seasonings (I usually use salt, pepper, garlic powder, cumin, paprika, and chili powder)
  • oil and butter for cooking

Instructions

  1. At least three hours before you start to cook, make an egg and milk mixture and salt it heavily, using two eggs per cup of milk, so there's enough to soak the chicken at least halfway up. Beat the eggs, add the milk, stir in salt, and let the chicken soak in this. This helps to make the chicken moist and tender.

  2. About 40 minutes before dinner, turn the oven to 425, and put a pan with sides into the oven. I use a 15"x21" sheet pan and I put about a cup of oil and one or two sticks of butter. Let the pan and the butter and oil heat up.

  3. While it is heating up, put a lot of flour in a bowl and add all your seasonings. Use more than you think is reasonable! Take the chicken parts out of the milk mixture and roll them around in the flour until they are coated on all sides.

  4. Lay the floured chicken in the hot pan, skin side down. Let it cook for 25 minutes.

  5. Flip the chicken over and cook for another 20 minutes.

  6. Check for doneness and serve immediately. It's also great cold.

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Instant Pot Risotto

Almost as good as stovetop risotto, and ten billion times easier. Makes about eight cups. 

Ingredients

  • 1 medium onion, diced
  • 4 cloves garlic, minced or crushed
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp ground sage
  • 3 Tbsp olive oil
  • 4 cups rice, raw
  • 6 cups chicken stock
  • 2 cups dry white wine
  • 1/2 cup butter
  • pepper
  • 1.5 cups grated parmesan cheese

Instructions

  1. Turn IP on sautee, add oil, and sautee the onion, garlic, salt, and sage until onions are soft.

  2. Add rice and butter and cook for five minutes or more, stirring constantly, until rice is mostly opaque and butter is melted.

  3. Press "cancel," add the broth and wine, and stir.

  4. Close the top, close valve, set to high pressure for 9 minutes.

  5. Release the pressure and carefully stir in the parmesan cheese and pepper. Add salt if necessary. 

 

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quick-pickled carrots and/or cucumbers for banh mi, bibimbap, ramen, tacos, etc.

An easy way to add tons of bright flavor and crunch to a meal. We pickle carrots and cucumbers most often, but you can also use radishes, red onions, daikon, or any firm vegetable. 

Ingredients

  • 6-7 medium carrots, peeled
  • 1 lb mini cucumbers (or 1 lg cucumber)

For the brine (make double if pickling both carrots and cukes)

  • 1 cup water
  • 1/2 cup rice vinegar (other vinegars will also work; you'll just get a slightly different flavor)
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1 Tbsp kosher salt

Instructions

  1. Mix brine ingredients together until salt and sugar are dissolved. 

  2. Slice or julienne the vegetables. The thinner they are, the more flavor they pick up, but the more quickly they will go soft, so decide how soon you are going to eat them and cut accordingly!

    Add them to the brine so they are submerged.

  3. Cover and let sit for a few hours or overnight or longer. Refrigerate if you're going to leave them overnight or longer.

What’s for supper? Vol. 437: The Supper of Theseus

Hello! Happy Friday! It is upside-downy day. I slept later than I meant and then spent the whooooooole rest of the day writing until it was time for dinner. Made some spaghetti, THEN did yoga, then cleaned the kitchen because Lucy wasn’t feeling well, then cleaned the dining room because I suddenly couldn’t stand it anymore. And now I am finally writing my food post, which I usually do first thing after yoga on Fridays. 

So! Here is what we had: 

SATURDAY
Leftovers and Aldi pizza

I absolutely trapped myself into going to confession while we were out shopping, and that was a relief. (No murders or anything; it’s just been a while.) I don’t remember much else about Saturday, except that hardly anyone was home. I think Damien was helping Moe with something. Oh yes, and he took Corrie along for the ride. Sadly, the hedgehog shop below Moe’s apartment (yes) was closed for the day, but they had a nice day anyway. 

SUNDAY
Beach food!

Sunday we finally got to the ocean, on the very last day of summer vacation. Poor Damien hurt his back and couldn’t go, and the older kids all went together in a separate car with friends to belatedly celebrate Lucy’s birthday. So that left me, Benny, and Corrie. We were pretty far away from the hurricane, but the ocean was still feeling it. 

Bunch more pictures here.

 

Since it was just the three of us, we hit the arcade and then picked a beachside restaurant. Corrie got her very first footlong hotdog

and Benny got a burger and I got some ridiculous cheesy bacon fries. We don’t have a lot of outings with just the three of us these days, and it was fun! We got home purty late, showered the sand off, and fell into bed. 

MONDAY
Grilled ham and cheese, chips, fruit salad

First day of school! The younger kids just had half days (not the same half, of course), so we were pretty much driving all day. A fine day for ham and cheese. 

I cut up a watermelon and a bunch of strawberries and threw in some grapes and called it good. 

TUESDAY
Chicken genovese, bread

This past weekend I got fed up with my cinnamon basil, which I bought accidentally, and which has been flourishing like nothing else I’ve ever planted. I don’t really like cinnamon basil, though. But I kept telling myself I was going to make something with it, so I kept watering it and picking the blossoms off every few days, and getting madder and madder as it got bigger and bigger. Anyway, I finally dug it up, chunked it in holes in the front of the house, and declared it flowering plants. I used the open garden space, plus the space where the potatoes were, to plant some cucumber seeds. I don’t know if I’ll really get a harvest before the frost comes, but I might!

Then on Tuesday, I picked a ton of regular basil and made pesto, more or less following this recipe. 

Good stuff. 

I ran out of pine nuts, so I toasted a bunch of almonds and then forgot to put them in. OH WELL. Pesto still turned out great, if a bit pale. 

The recipe is actually for chicken genovese, which is chicken roasted with pesto on and under the skin. It was whole chickens that were on sale, and it turns out most of the kids don’t like pesto (THEY DON’T LIKE PESTO), so I just roasted one with basic seasonings (salt, pepper, garlic powder, I think maybe paprika) and olive oil, and one with the pesto. One of the kids came in when I was shoving pesto under the skin and got permanently creeped out, and I have to admit, it was a little creepy!

Delicious, though. I honestly can’t tell if this looks yummy or grisly, but it was, in fact, yummy. 

When I cut it open, the layer of interior pesto looked so fancy. 

Again, not really sure if this looks gross! I’m tired, and just can’t tell!

I just cut up a bunch of baguettes and dumped a bag of fresh spinach into a bowl, and it was a nice meal. Something different. 

WEDESDAY
Weird tacos, tortilla chips

Wednesday I made some really terrible tacos. I couldn’t find the garlic powder, so I used garlic salt, forgetting that I had already added quite a bit of salt. Then I was out of cumin, so I decided to put a whole extra lot of chili powder, which doesn’t even make sense. I guess I was kind of distracted. Anyway, we had tacos. 

THURSDAY
Salmon, risotto, roast butternut squash

Thursday I was planning to try my new-to-me air fryer, and a few people told me salmon was a great thing to make it in. So I bought some frozen salmon at Walmart, and then for some reason at the last minute I decided to try a slightly more complex recipe than just, you know, salt and pepper and lemon juice. This calls for cutting the salmon into chunks, rolling it in a mixture of spices and brown sugar, and then air frying. Which isn’t that hard, except that I could not get the air fryer to heat up, at all. The light went on, the timer ticked and binged, but no heat, no matter how I set it. UNFORTUNATE. 

So I pan fried the salmon in hot oil, and they turned out pretty okayish. 

Salmon is already on the sweet side, so I think next time I’ll stick with a simpler recipe next time, with no sugar. I guess I was hoping maybe the kids would eat it if it had sugar on it. Don’t tell that shaved ape who runs the health department.

I also cut up a couple of butternut squashes and roasted them on a pan with honey, olive oil, uhhhhh salt, cinnamon, and chili powder, I think. 

That, too, turned out okay. 

The last part was risotto, and I made it in my new-to-me pressure cooker. My Instant Pot kicked the bucket, and what I really wanted was another 8-quart Instant Pot, but those are hard to find (it’s mostly 6-quart ones); so I settled for an 8-quart Instant Pot knockoff. I got it on the day we went to see the petroglyphs. And immediately realized it was, in fact, 6-quart Instant Pot knockoff, and kind of smelled like cigarettes. 

NO MATTER. I wiped it down and there was juuuust room in it to make a triple recipe of risotto. I followed this recipe, except without the sage and squash, and also I shoved a stick of butter in there before adding the cheese. And I doubled the cheese. And I used regular rice instead of arborio. Well, I guess I didn’t really follow the recipe. But it was good!

A good meal altogether, if a bit Ship of Theseusish. 

FRIDAY
Regular spaghetti

I already told you about Friday. What I didn’t tell you is doing yoga after eating a hearty bowl of spaghetti is not highly recommended. But you probably didn’t need me to tell you that. 

So tomorrow, my SISTER is coming, and she and some of her kids are going to spend TWO NIGHTS here! (Okay, yes, that is why I cleaned the dining room. But really, it was out of control anyway.) I am very excited. Thinking about trying out our new-to-me rotisserie thing, since we’ve had so much success lately with new-to-me appliances. I think I’m gonna finally pick my first round of corn, too. 

Okay, that’s it! Happy Friday!

What’s for supper? Vol. 434: Shawarmageddon

Happy Friday! Hope this finds you well. It finds me listening to Mozart Piano Sonata No. 5 in G and then suddenly AN AD FOR FREAKIER FRIDAY, which is essentially a war crime. Not to mention the Lay’s potato chip ad, which features someone loudly chomping on a chip right into the microphone. WHO WANTS THAT?

Anyway, so, here’s what we had this week. Some pretty good summer meals, a new recipe, and another successful kid-made meal! To wit: 

SATURDAY
Leftovers, onion rings

Saturday is a blur. I vaguely remember angrily cleaning the refrigerator out. Don’t know if I’ve ever cleaned the fridge out without being angry. 

SUNDAY
Parking lot pizza

Sunday we went to Canobie! I got an unexpected royalty check and it was enough to pay for most of the trip, so I was feeling pretty triumphant about that. I was riding the migraine train all weekend, but I medicated and caffeinated myself to the max, and when we got there, Damien gave me his sunglasses, sent the kids away, and put me on an inflated tube, and we floated around the lazy river together until I felt a little more embodied. 

We stayed for seven hours and it was a pretty great day. I have no regrets about having all those babies, but DANG life is easier without babies.

I posted some pics here if you want to take a look. 

We left the park at nine and chose the nearest pizza spot that was still open, which turned out to be the elegantly-situated Salem House of Pizza. 

All your bodily needs, from the lashes of your eyes to the soles of your shoes, catered to in one spot. I was kind of fascinated by “Bread Makery.” If only there were a word for that! We have a local business called “Jenna’s Butcher” and we used to have a “The Barbery.” I feel we should RETVRN to . . . I don’t even know, whatever. Just, everyone, before doing anything, ask me. 

On the other hand, I’m the one who was very excited to have found this very old penny with a rare misprint on it. It says “ONE CENT” backwards!

So I posted about it on Facebook and started thinking about how valuable it might be if it were cleaned up, and maybe it would even pay for a new roof, and I showed it to Damien, and he gently pointed out that it was a regular penny that I was holding upside down. 

Yeah, well. I’m still starting a roof repair fund. So far, I have one cent. 

Anyway, this pizza place closed at 10 and we got there at 9:15, but they were still pretty mad! So most of us skulked outside while the pizzas cooked, but Corrie opted to have a seat inside, and have a chat with her favorite person

and I have to admit, that pizza was frickin delicious. Possibly because it was the freshest possible pizza imaginable, as they essentially pulled it out of the oven and threw it at us. But it was also very late and we had all logged our 10K steps and then some; but it was also just good pizza. We ate it on the car hood and it was fab. 

I fell asleep a few times on the way home. Sadly, I was driving. But I did wake up again right away, and filed the experience away to my “maybe we are getting too old for this kind of thing” folder. 

MONDAY
Salad with chicken, blueberries, almonds

Monday was a bit of a blur, but I did get supper on the table. Roast chicken breast over salad greens, with blueberries, minced red onion, crunchy onions from a can, and sliced almonds (toasted in the microwave). 

This salad is good with feta or blue cheese, but I didn’t buy any. I think I had blue cheese dressing on mine, and it was good. The blueberries are sweet this year. As you can see, we also had watermelon, and it was another massively juicy one. 

TUESDAY
Grilled ham and cheese, chips, pickles

Tuesday the new swing I ordered (after the old swings broke mid-swing) arrived, and Corrie put it together herself,

and now she lives on the swing. 

Seriously, I thought she would probably like it, but I did not anticipate she would be on there 23 hours a day. We had a tire swing when we were growing up, and it was The Place, so I get it. I still remember the smell of the rubber tire, the sound of rainwater sloshing around in the bottom, the prickle of the frayed rope, the sway of the ground passing by. Dragging your fingertips over the roots of the tree as you drift through leafy shadows. Ah, summer. 

We had a blessedly easy dinner of grilled ham and cheese, with chips and pickles. 

Last night I dreamt I was in college again, and it was pretty terrible. I was carrying hay-bale-sized rolls of toilet paper upstairs for the whole dorm, and nobody even said thank you, and my friend Dena from elementary school was there, and she didn’t like me anymore.

The dream did not include one of my actual greatest college experiences, which was getting drunk as a skunk at Penuche’s, and then staggering next door to Jesus Grocery and asking for a hot dog, and the polite Pakistani cashier gently explaining they didn’t have hot dogs, but he could make me a chhham and cheese for a dollar twenty-five. Best chhhham and cheese I’ve ever had. But this one was pretty good, too. 

Tuesday evening, Sophia started prepping for her marvelous Kid-Made Meal of the week. First she shopped for and then made tiramisu, following this recipe, and she made the exact same mistake I made last time I made tiramisu, and mixed the egg custard and the cream parts together, rather than having them as separate layers. I was happy to be able to reassure her that it wasn’t a disaster and everyone would love it anyway.

I also showed her how to skin and bone chicken thighs, and she did that and made the marinade and got the chicken marinating for the next day. And cleaned up! 

WEDNESDAY
Shawarma, pita, tiramisu

AND OH WHAT A SHAWARMA IT WAS. Here’s my oven shawarma recipe.

Jump to Recipe

I still hope to use that rotisserie spit I got at my favorite store, but this recipe works great, especially if you give the meat plenty of time to marinate. 

Sophia also made pita, using this recipe. Guys, it was so much better than any pita I’ve ever made. I’m so impressed. Also, her yogurt sauce was better.

Jump to Recipe

Also, the shawarma was better! I don’t know what she did (and when I asked, she said she just followed my recipes!), but it was a completely fantastic meal. 

Served with tomatoes, cucumbers, feta, black and kalamata olives. We lost the parsley, but didn’t miss it. 

Amazing. I know shawarma is supposed to be in little bits, but the chicken was so tender, we didn’t bother. 

The tiramisu was also splendid. I didn’t get a picture, because I was too busy arguing with myself that I would rather have tiramisu than get a gold star in food today (yes, I have a sticker chart, and yes, I give myself a gold star if I stick to my calorie goal. And yes, the tiramisu was a good trade). 

THURSDAY
Vietnamese-style meatballs, rice, peas, cherries

New recipe! I ended up using just ground beef, rather than beef and pork; I had lemon zest rather than lime, and I didn’t make the sauce. Still super delicious, very flavorful, with all the good stuff: Fresh garlic and ginger, cilantro, fresh mint, fish sauce, and of course the citrus zest, plus red pepper flakes and scallions. And eggs and panko crumbs, as long as I’m listing all the ingredients. I made a double recipe and ended up with about 75 meatballs, which means I made them smaller than they were supposed to be, but I thought it was a good size. The fish sauce makes them quite salty, so smaller is good. They are baked in the oven, so that’s easy. 

I made rice on the stovetop like an absolute peasant, because I completely forgot about fixing my Instant Pot, which just flashes and beeps and does nothing else. We had just plain peas, which some of my kids are weirdly enthusiastic about, and cherries. 

So kind of an odd but satisfying meal. I’ll probably make the meatballs again, and will probably make the spicy sauce, which calls for peanuts, yum. 

I also started phase 1 of  Project Enormous S’mores, which was homemade graham crackers. I made a triple batch of dough from this recipe, and put it in the fridge to chill

and I was going to make a giant slab of marshmallow, but the recipe was pretty adamant that you don’t want to make homemade marshmallows when it’s humid out, which it sure was. I think I’ll try again on Saturday. Benny is the chief S’mores lover, and she will be out of town on Saturday, so it would be fun to have all the stuff ready for Sunday.

For the giant chocolate bar element, I just keep buying bags of chocolate chips (not all at the same time, because that would be expensive. Instead, I am buying them a few at a time, which is thrifty. In some way), and I’m probably gonna melt them in a double boiler with some Crisco, and then spread that in a pan lined with parchment paper, and put it in the fridge to set. That should work, right? 

FRIDAY
Spaghetti

Or, as one of my kids used to call it, “pigsnetti.”

What did your kids call spaghetti? Tell me cute things! Right now, I don’t have anyone in my house who mispronounces things in a cute way. I do have a bunch of teenagers who started out saying things like “kway-sa-DILL-a” and “GWACK-a-mole” to be funny, but now it’s just habit and they just say it that way automatically, and some day they’re going to be very embarrassed in front of someone they care about. But that’s not my problem! 

The summer really is wrapping up, and I didn’t do a lot of the things I wanted to, yet. I have to get back to Corrie’s treehouse (which is still just two planks bolted to a tree!), and I haven’t made any progress on the front walkway at all. I honestly wouldn’t feel bad if I just set that project aside for the spring, but I do want to make that treehouse. We are planning one more ocean trip, but man, it went by fast!  So fast. We have a kid starting college in a few weeks, and, sighhhh, also a kid moving out into their first apartment. Yeah, I gotta get that treehouse done. 

Anyway, tell me the cute way your kid says spaghetti. 

5 from 2 votes
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Chicken shawarma

Ingredients

  • 8 lbs boned, skinned chicken thighs
  • 4-5 red onions
  • 1.5 cups lemon juice
  • 2 cups olive oil
  • 4 tsp kosher salt
  • 2 Tbs, 2 tsp pepper
  • 2 Tbs, 2 tsp cumin
  • 1 Tbsp red pepper flakes OR Aleppo pepper
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 1 entire head garlic, crushed OR bashed into pieces

Instructions

  1. Mix marinade ingredients together, then add chicken. Put in ziplock bag and let marinate several hours or overnight.

  2. Preheat the oven to 425.

  3. Grease a shallow pan. Take the chicken out of the marinade and spread it in a single layer on the pan, and top with the onions (sliced or quartered). If you kept the garlic in larger pieces, fish those out of the marinade and strew them over the chicken. Cook for 45 minutes or more. 

  4. Chop up the chicken a bit, if you like, and finish cooking it so it crisps up a bit more.

  5. Serve chicken and onions with pita bread triangles, cucumbers, tomatoes, assorted olives, feta cheese, fresh parsley, pomegranates or grapes, fried eggplant, and yogurt sauce.

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Yogurt sauce

Ingredients

  • 32 oz full fat Greek yogurt
  • 5 cloves garlic, crushed
  • 1/4 cup lemon juice
  • 3 Tbsp olive oil
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp pepper
  • fresh parsley or dill, chopped (optional)

Instructions

  1. Mix all ingredients together. Use for spreading on grilled meats, dipping pita or vegetables, etc. 

What’s for supper? Vol. 428: There must be … fifty ways to stretch a meatball

Happy Friday! Let’s hop to it! Here’s what we ate this week: 

Oh, but first, last Friday I made something I don’t normally: French bread pizza. I got store-bought bread but made homemade mozzarella , which is very soft and mild. 

The kids love frozen french bread pizza, so I thought the homemade version would be popular. I WAS WRONG. Why? Who knows. Oh well! 

SATURDAY
Leftover buffet (?) 

I have no memory of Saturday’s dinner. Damien and I went to the No Kings rally, and I must have made supper at some point?  Here’s a collection of signs I saw. 

Possibly my favorite:

Huge crowd, great energy, no violence or litter or unpleasantness, just an extremely diverse crowd of people, including lots of people who were pretty clearly at their first protest. I got my picture in the local paper!  We’ll definitely be going again. 

SUNDAY
Chicago-style hot dogs, fries

Sunday I went shopping and then we had a low key father’s day, with a few of the big kids coming over for supper. We had Chicago-style hot dogs, which are supposed to be on poppy seed buns, which I couldn’t find; but we had mustard and then “dragged them through the garden” with pickle spears, fresh tomatoes, chopped onions, pickled peppers, and celery salt. I skipped the pickle relish because I didn’t think anyone would eat it. 

Looks like I ran out of room before I put any peppers on, actually. 

I made some brownies from a mix (and the kids did not miss their chance to torment me about having bought brownie mix on purpose for the first time in my life, after a long and tragic history of being incredibly stupid about brownie mix for some reason). Ice cream on warm brownies topped with hot fudge sauce, mini M&Ms, whipped cream from a can, cherries. 

Unsophisticated and delicious. Americans really get some things right. 

MONDAY
Grilled ham and cheese, raw vegetables

Monday I suddenly found the giant pile of scrap wood in front of the house intolerable, so I flung it onto the other, even gianter pile of scrap wood on the side of the driveway. Follow me for more curb appeal tips. I’ll fling you, too. 

In the afternoon, I started some pork marinating for Tuesday. Corrie helped with this. This recipe has a certain appeal for her:

namely, that I used an entire tube of red food coloring. Walmart was selling sets of food coloring for like fifty cents, so I bought uhhh all of them. In anticipation of the day when food coloring becomes outlawed but we won’t have the energy to fret about birthday cakes colored with beet juice because we will all have polio!

Then we had grilled ham and cheese and veggies. 

Also on Monday, Clara stopped by to pick up Benny for play practice, and dropped off a sample of the tarts she had made for the cast. 

It is a graham cracker poppy seed and ginger crust filled with grapefruit curd tart and topped with basil-infused whipped cream. All made from scratch, and, as far as I can tell, a recipe she invented.  I’ve been off sugar all month, but I made an exception, yes I did. I nearly wept at the marriage of flavors. It was like, I don’t know, pirouetting through a garden.

TUESDAY
Char siu, rice, pineapple

Tuesday I was still in a bit of “MUST ACCOMPLISH SOMETHING ACCOMPLISHABLE” frenzy, so first I sternly informed myself that, if I were really ever going to upcycle all those animal feed bags, I would have done it before we had eighteen of them. 

So I listed them on a “buy nothing” group, and a capable-looking woman claimed them right away. These are actually really useful items! You can use them to insulate your bird coop, lay them down for a weed barrier, use them to line a compost bin, fill them with dirt and grow potatoes, use them for outdoor trash bags (I actually do this), or make a few modifications and turn them into sturdy tote bags. Or you can just list them on Marketplace and say hail and farewell. 

I also sorted through a couple of bags of seeds I saved last summer. It was mostly marigolds, but also zinnia and something I couldn’t identify, plus lupines, and some rose hips I gathered on the island we visited last summer.

I broke open the lupine pods and set the seeds to soak, and I cut open the rose hips

and put the seeds in a bag in the fridge. Then I took my vast collection of plant pots and filled them with compost, and planted all the rest of the seeds, and sternly instructed them to grow. Accomplishable!

I actually forgot about the lupine seeds until this minute, so I hope they haven’t soaked too long. 

Speaking of soaking, though, I was extremely pleased to remember I had been marinating that pork for 24 hours. I had followed this char siu recipe from Recipe Tin Eats which has you basting the meat every half hour or so. It turns out MAGNIFICENT. 

Just perfect. Super easy, and mainly an investment of time. The pork is tender and juicy, but not shreddy like pulled pork. Just lovely in thin slices. I cut up a few pineapples and cooked a big pot of rice, and it was a great meal. 

There is quite a bit of leftover pork, so get ready for pictures of leftover pork. 

WEDNESDAY
Meatball subs, cheezy weezies

Wednesday, I spotted the glorious spectacle of one of my teenagers planning a Dungeons & Dragons campaign with the two youngest kids. I’m trying to be better about not sharing too many photos of them, but believe me, it melted my gorgon heart. My kids are turning out pretty great. 

In sadder news, we are at the point in our history where it’s exciting when ground beef falls to $3.49 a pound, and we still have eight people in the house. So I put on my thinking cap and combined a few pounds of ground beef with a few pounds of ground turkey that is cheap at Aldi, plus some breadcrumbs, which I normally use in meatballs, plus a bunch of leftover cooked rice. (I also mixed in a bunch of beaten eggs, a ton of Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper, onion powder, and garlic powder.) I got fifty good-sized meatballs out of it. 

I documented it because I’ve never stretched meatballs with rice before. So here is a picture of raw meatballs with rice. 

I’m giggling at how not-round they are. What the heck was I doing? Probably thinking about some other food. I’m always thinking about food. 

Anyway, unless I’m being fancy, I generally bake meatballs in the oven on a rack. Then I put them in a crock pot with sauce and keep them warm until supper. 

They turned out great! You really couldn’t taste the rice. You could see it

but otherwise they were completely normal meatballs. So, phew! Take that, expensive ground beef!

I spent the rest of the day tearing around doing various tasks I’ve been putting off, culminating with sorting through every last one of Corrie’s stuffed animals, packing up half to put in the attic, moving a dresser from the dining room into her newly-clean closet, and hanging a net for the rest of the stuffed animals. 

And here was my vibrantly-colored reward.

You can see in the background the trash can, brimming with exactly four items I was allowed to throw out: A pilled dollar store Christmas stocking, an especially ratty snake, a box with a shattered plastic lid, and a one-legged dinosaur with no head. Everything else Must Be Saved. I really can’t blame any of my kids for being pack rats, because I honestly had a really hard time throwing away that dinosaur. It was a dinosaur with :::memories::::. 

The super glue is to hold my brain in. Keeps falling out. 

Oh, but this made me laugh. I did Google how to stretch ground beef, but I made a small but significant typo, resulting in this response:

Normally I loathe and despise anything AI, but this time I felt kind of bad for it. It tried so hard to make sense of my question. “It seems there might be a slight misunderstanding . . . ” Story of my life, pal. 

THURSDAY

Spaghetti carbonara

Thursday it suddenly got really hot, and I was having some doubts about my plans to serve carbonara. Then it turned out three of the kids were going out for dinner with their friends, and one kid was at work, and of the two kids at home, one doesn’t like carbonara and one is neutral on carbonara, if you can imagine. To me, carbonara is still one of those things you go around telling people about, and possibly making them come over and admire!

So I was a little flummoxed about how to proceed. Was it sweating over a frying pan and steaming up the kitchen for a meal that only a few people even wanted?

The answer is: Yes, if it’s carbonara. I ended up saving out several pieces of bacon for the weird kid who doesn’t like it at all, and making two pounds of spaghetti with the rest. And you know what, it was the best carbonara I’ve ever made, and everybody liked it! 

And I had mine outside, feeling very wealthy indeed. Earlier in the week, I broke the mower and Damien fixed it and then I broke it again and he fixed it again, so I had done a bunch of mowing and weeding and mulching over the week, and dang, it’s so pretty out there in June.

And it was not too hot for carbonara! For some reason pasta with tomato sauce feels like a cold-weather dish, but you can be sweating all your limbs off and still feel good about eating carbonara. 

FRIDAY
Quesadillas, chips and salsa

Regular old quesadillas, perfectly fine.  I’m hoping against hope that the mechanic will finish my car today. It’s been in the shop all week and I truly don’t know if the bill is going to be a “well, we’ll just tighten our belts for the rest of the month” situation, or more of a a “Merciful Lord, please make someone dumb enough to give me a loan” deal. Oh the suspense! At least we have June. And leftover pork! 

Print

Meatballs for a crowd

Make about 100 golf ball-sized meatballs. 

Ingredients

  • 5 lbs ground meat (I like to use mostly beef with some ground chicken or turkey or pork)
  • 6 eggs, beaten
  • 2 cups panko bread crumbs
  • 8 oz grated parmesan cheese (about 2 cups)
  • salt, pepper, garlic powder, oregano, basil, etc.

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 400.

  2. Mix all ingredients together with your hands until it's fully blended.

  3. Form meatballs and put them in a single layer on a pan with drainage. Cook, uncovered, for 30 minutes or more until they're cooked all the way through.

  4. Add meatballs to sauce and keep warm until you're ready to serve. 

Print

Spaghetti carbonara

An easy, delicious meal.

Ingredients

  • 3 lbs bacon
  • 3 lbs spaghetti
  • 1 to 1-1/2 sticks butter
  • 6 eggs, beaten
  • lots of pepper
  • 6-8 oz grated parmesan cheese

Instructions

  1. Fry the bacon until it is crisp. Drain and break it into pieces.

  2. Boil the spaghetti in salted water until al dente. If you like, add some bacon grease to the boiling water.

  3. Drain the spaghetti and return it to the pot. Add the butter, pieces of bacon, parmesan cheese, and pepper and mix it up until the butter is melted.

  4. Add the raw beaten egg and mix it quickly until the spaghetti is coated. Serve immediately.

 

What’s for supper? Vol. 426: You may want to write this down

Happy Friday! I didn’t have anything extra on my calendar this week, and it was sunny every day, so I was able to just . . . do the things I am in charge of, and it was immensely satisfying. 

You know what else is satisfying? Food! Especially when you are hungry! I don’t know if other people have made that connection, or if I just invented it.

Here is what we ate this week:

SATURDAY
Leftover Delite and taquitos

Looks like some bo ssam, spiedies, chicken pie, and pizza pockets, plus of course taquitos. 

Note the peppers! A bona fide vegetable!

The family is not nearly as enthusiastic about Leftover Buffet Saturday as they were when I inaugurated it, but I still absolutely love it as a weekly staple. It saves money (I generally spend less than $10 on Saturday meals), it saves time and mental energy (I always know what’s for supper!), and it doesn’t force me to clean out the fridge once a week, but it sure encourages it. And I have a much easier time throwing out Perfectly Good Food if it’s been given a second chance and still didn’t get eaten. Very Marie Kondo, with a lot fewer nameless ziplock bags of sludge lurking in the back of the fridge. So I’m pretty proud of this new thing I invented: Eating leftovers. Feel free to copy this idea. 

SUNDAY
Omelettes and hash browns

Sunday I did the thing I’ve been threatening to do for weeks now: I cleaned Corrie’s room. First I sent her up to bring down one big bag of trash and as many clothes as she could find, and try to put all the books in one spot. Then she went to a birthday party and I went in and did the fling zone method I invented, and I listened to the first two of “The Fall of the Aztecs” episodes of The Rest Is History. I’m not a big podcast person, just mainly because I’m a late adopter in general, and don’t want to rush into any new fads. But The Rest Is History is FANTASTIC. Incredibly entertaining and compelling episodes about people, places, and events you may never even have thought to wonder about, and all rigorously researched and frequently very funny. Damien often plays it in the car when it’s his turn to bring the kids to school, and it is not exactly PG, but in general I would be comfortable playing it for kids ages 10 and up. 

So that took probably three hours, including removing the old bunk bed and putting a single bed in. Well, first I had to repair the bed, because it was Millie’s old bed (it’s a really pretty white wooden bed with spindles at the head and a sea shell carved on it), and I couldn’t get it out of her house, so I ended up uh sawing it in half. The actual repair was fast, but it took me FOREVER to figure out which piece went where, somehow. (There were four pieces. I’m just. . . not good at some things.) 

I knew this would take all day, so I planned a quick meal: Frozen hash browns and omelettes with your choice of cheese, Canadian bacon, and mushrooms. Nobody picked mushrooms. 

I use about three eggs per omelette, but I speed it up by cracking all the eggs into a bowl and beating them, and then measuring out about half a cup of beaten egg per omelette.

They were not delicate and beautiful, because I was TIRED, but they tasted fine. 

Perfectly fine. I lay down for a while and kept thinking about how tomorrow, I was going to put together a pen for the new ducks, so they wouldn’t keep getting stuck in the stream and need Damien to come get them, but then freak out like lunatics when he does come get them. Eventually I realized I was expending so much mental energy thinking about it, I might as well go ahead and do it.

We have an old trampoline frame, which I put together upside-down and then stretched chicken wire around it and fastened it with zip ties. Easy peasy. By the time they ducks are big enough to jump over the fence, they’ll be big enough to roam freely but still come home at night, and we won’t need the pen. I highly recommend having an old trampoline frame in your yard! You can use it to make an enclosed garden, too. 

MONDAY
Pizza

Monday I planted a ton of flower seeds finally, and I potted a bunch of pansies in hanging buckets from Aldi, and made a little flower area — a garden, I suppose you could call it. This week, you may have noticed, I’m in the business of inventing things that definitely haven’t already existed for millennia — in front of the deck

Daisies and day lilies transplanted from elsewhere in the yard, and clematis seeds in the pot on the left. I feel like I also planted some kind of seeds between the lilies, but I guess I’ll have to wait and see. Life is so exciting when you routinely hide your own actions from your conscious mind. Either way, it won’t matter, because any seedlings I plant will get eaten by rabbits.

But I had fun. I finally got to use my new Japanese weeding sickle I got for Christmas, and dang, that thing is useful in about six different ways. It’s also one of the few tools I put the little plastic sheath back onto when I’m done, because dang, that thing is sharp. (Yes I cut myself.) I’ve also been using my hori hori knife a lot. I really think the Japanese are onto something. 

Monday I also found a NIB electric rotisserie on the side of the road, plus a vinyl countertop in great shape! Corrie also got some kind of wooden shelf thing that she feels will be useful. I don’t know where she gets these garbage-picking ways. Some people are just born pack rats. Probably a recessive gene. 

So, a ROTISSERIE. Just think of the meat we can slowly turn. We can eat like Hobbits! We can eat like Henry VIII! I can make SHAWARMA WITH THAT LAMB I’VE BEEN SAVING IN THE FREEZER. I remember when the kids were little, we would go shopping, and the three exciting things were: Free cookie, lobster tank, and “the chicken ride.” And now we shall have a chicken ride of one’s own. 

I also remember going shopping with my son, who was so incredibly terrible in the store that every time I got back I would tell my husband “I am never taking him out of the house again.” And now he is a children’s librarian. You never know. 

TUESDAY
Musakhan and taboon

On Tuesday, I got some chicken marinating in the morning and measured out the ingredients for bread, wrote a ton, and then did some extensive cleaning out of old flower beds. Then, with the gracious permission of Millie’s family, I dug up a white peony and a purple lupine from her yard and moved them into my yard.

The peony is doing great, as peonies tend to do. The lupine is not super happy about the move, but I think it will pull through. I had bought a bunch of crazy cheap perennials from the local garden club, and added those to this garden, so now it has tulips, daffodils, hyacinths, and crocuses in the early spring, and then alliums, speedwell, some asiatic lilies, purple lupines, white and pink peonies, pink dianthus, purple garden phlox, siberian blue irises, and shasta daisies for the late spring/summer. I hadn’t really planned a pink, white, and purple summer garden, but it just worked out that way, and soon it will have a background of goldenrod, so that works out! 

The chicken was mousakhan, or Palestinian chicken. I use this Saveur recipe and I was a little sad because I was a short on sumac, which is an important flavor in this dish, giving it a wonderful sour-bright tang. I subbed in a bunch of lemon pepper seasoning, and it wasn’t quite the same, but not a terrible idea. 

Got home from the afternoon run and made the taboon dough. Here is that recipe:

Jump to Recipe

It has to rise for an hour, so while it was doing that I put the chicken in the oven and did a little more gardening. Then I rolled out the dough and stretched it onto a giant pan and baked it for about 12 minutes.

It was a little bit gummy, to be perfectly honest. I think I rushed mixing the dough. But still, piping hot bread with savory chicken on top, sprinkled with sizzling hot pine nuts and fresh parsley. Pretty, pretty good.

You just tear off what bread you want and then help yourself to chicken, and the juice from the chicken seeps into the bread and it’s pretty great.

I had mine outside. 

And then I went inside and had some more!

WEDNESDAY
Regular tacos, chips and salsa

Wednesday I decided to mow, and gave the pull string thing a mighty yank, and yanked it right out of the lawnmower. So instead of mowing, I tackled the area with the potting table (or, as I absentmindedly called it much to Corrie’s delight, “my plant desk”), where I have just been flinging basically everything yard-related all year. I threw out three bags of rotten crap, tossed some disreputable wood onto the scrap pile, organized my extensive collection of empty flowerpots, dragged a lot of old chickenwire out of the tall grass, and reconfigured the whole thing using that countertop I picked up. 

Pretty swanky! I need to slap something on the underside of the counter to seal the wood and make it last a little longer. There is, in fact, wood sealant in this photo, and it is a thing I may actually do, because it’s June, which is the month when I actually do things. 

Then I quickly made some very boring tacos. I had a “chub” of ground beef — the kind that is wrapped in plastic printed with a photo of meat, which is not as reassuring as they think — and added salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, cumin, paprika, and cayenne pepper, and we had shredded cheddar, salsa, and sour cream, and tortilla chips. Basic but fine. I was HONGRY. 

THURSDAY
Chicken enchilada rice bowls, black beans with spinach

Thursday it suddenly got quite hot. When I get hot, I get angry, and suddenly the things I’ve been ignoring become intolerable, so I often end up doing gross and heavy jobs on the hottest days. Hey, it’s an ethos.

This time, I cleaned out the fire pit, which was all overgrown and kind of foul (SOMEBODY had pulled the old straw off the strawberry bed and just dumped it, and it was rotten and stinky and full of slugs); and then I was so sweaty and grubby I figured I might as well face the six tubs of broken bricks and gravel that I had deserted on the side of the patio when I made the patio uh two years ago and have been avoiding thinking about ever since. 

I thought maybe I could use the sand to fill in some eroded spots in the driveway, which is unfortunately uphill and on the other side of the house. So I did one load, then another, and then another, and then decided, you know, death comes for us all eventually, things fall apart, the driveway will erode, and what can one do, really. Definitely not drag any more of this shit up that hill, I don’t care what Kate Bush says. 

I complained about this problem I had invented until Damien suggested maybe the fire pit could use some gravel and sand, and that happens to be downhill. That man is brilliant. 

I also dragged the old plastic play house out of the blackberries and across the yard to the duck house

and was extremely proud of myself for inventing a system where you could store hay in a special little house that’s sheltered from the rain and conveniently located next to the animals, until a friend pointed out that this what’s commonly known as a “barn,” and I didn’t actually come up with it. Then Damien reminded me of the time when I was pretty, pretty tired and came up with the idea of plastic bowls.

Whatever! I am living life fully over here, enjoying my specially curated grass-adjacent flower area, my outdoor plant desk, and my weather resistant hay house, and if you people keep pushing me, I won’t tell you about the incredibly convenient portable food I once invented, which you can carry with you by, get this, affixing it to a piece of bread. It has lots of protein in it, because it is made of nuts, of all things, that you process in some way. I haven’t worked out the kinks yet, but I am thinking they could be blended up into something almost resembling butter. So it would be spreadable! Wouldn’t that be handy? I bet it would taste good, too. 

(This is a faithful rendition of an idea I actually had one time, when I was, yes, pretty tired, and invented peanut butter. You’re welcome.) 

Anyway, on Thursday I invented chicken enchilada bowls. I took some chicken breasts and seasoned them with Tony Cachere’s seasoning, on the principle that, if it’s orange and sprinkly, it’s probably more or less Mexican or whatever. I browned the chicken slowly in oil in a pan, and then shredded it in the standing mixer. Then I sliced up a ton of onions in the food processor and browned them slowly in the pan that I had cooked the chicken in. Then I mixed the chicken and onions together with a can of red enchilada sauce and put that all in the slow cooker. 

I also made a batch of black beans, and I threw some spinach in there, and left that to cook all day. 

Jump to Recipe

Late afternoon, I made a big pot of rice, and we had rice with the saucy, oniony chicken, beans, shredded cheese, sour cream, and corn chips, with lime wedges. PRETTY GOOD. 

I was pretty pleased with myself for inventing this entirely new dish. As I was writing it up just now, I went to add the new tag “chicken enchilada rice bowls” and discovered that I had already used that same tag.

Do you know what this means? I INVENTED IT TWICE. Science should study me. That’s how good I am. 

FRIDAY
Tuna noodle casserole 

Sophia volunteered to make dinner and this is what she wants to make, so I am not arguing. 

And that’s my week! Last night I dreamed I had signed a contract for a new book, and I came up with this brilliant plan of taking every essay I had already sold to this publisher, and just billing them for it again. Toward the end of the dream, I couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that this wasn’t how you do it, and then I woke up. 

I tell you, between me and the ducks, there’s just not a lot of brain action around here lately. But it is Friday!

Print

taboon bread

You can make separate pieces, like pita bread, or you can make one giant slab of taboon. This makes enough to easily stretch over a 15x21" sheet pan.

Ingredients

  • 6 cups bread flour
  • 4 packets yeast
  • 3 cups water
  • 2 Tbsp salt
  • 1/3 cup olive oil

Instructions

  1. Mix the flour, salt, and yeast in the bowl of a standing mixer.

  2. While it is running, add the olive oil. Then gradually add the water until the dough is soft and sticky. You may not need all of it. Let it run for a while to see if the dough will pull together before you need all the water. Knead or run with the dough hook for another few minutes.

  3. Put the dough in a greased bowl, grease the top, and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise in a warm spot for at least an hour until it has doubled in size.

  4. Preheat the oven to 400. Put a greased pan or a baking stone in the oven to heat up.

  5. If you are making separate pieces, divide it now and cover with a damp cloth. If you're making one big taboon, just handle it a bit, then put it back in the bowl and cover it with a damp cloth. Let rest ten minutes.

  6. Using a little flour, roll out the dough into the shape or shapes you want. Poke it all over with your fingertips to give it the characterstic dimpled appearance.

  7. Bake for 10-12 minutes until it's just slightly browned.

Print

Instant Pot black beans

Ingredients

  • 2 tsp olive oil
  • 1 onion, diced
  • 6-8 cloves garlic, minced
  • 2 16-oz cans black beans with liquid
  • 1/2 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
  • 1 Tbsp cumin
  • 1-1/2 tsp salt
  • pepper to taste

Instructions

  1. Put olive oil pot of Instant Pot. Press "saute" button. Add diced onion and minced garlic. Saute, stirring, for a few minutes until onion is soft. Press "cancel."

  2. Add beans with liquid. Add cumin, salt, and cilantro. Stir to combine. Close the lid, close the vent, and press "slow cook."

What’s for supper? Vol. 425: Two pies for Millie

Happy Friday! Before we get to the food, I want to acknowledge the passing of my beautiful friend Millie, age 90.

She had a rough couple of last months, but rallied so much at the end, everyone thought she was getting better. She visited her grandchildren and ate a lobster, and then she died in the night. 

I really loved her, and she loved me. I don’t know if you could say we knew each other deeply, but we felt strangely sympatico and enjoyed each other a lot. Please pray for Millie and her family! 

Okay, Millie would totally agree it’s time to talk about food now. Here’s what we had: 

SATURDAY
Leftovers and pizza pockets

We had tons of leftover chicken because two of my brothers and two of my nephews had been over on Thursday. In fact they came back in the evening after dinner on Saturday, so we had them a total of three nights! I haven’t seen my brother Jake or his kids in years, and it was pretty great. Sonny has literally never been happier. I don’t know what it was, but he feel hysterically in love with Jacob and stayed dialed up to eleven the whole time he was here. They were incredibly good sports about it. 

The cat was not. I guess he felt left out, and sulked in the bathroom much of the time, and only started gracing us with his presence again a few days ago. It’s so funny. When I was growing up, cats were mainly decorative creatures that you didn’t interact with much. I was not prepared to even be aware of this much of the emotional life of animals! 

SUNDAY
Pork spiedies, fries, berry crumble

Sunday of course we all went to Mass, and then after we had some final donuts and the fellers started their long drive home, I got some pork marinating for supper,

Jump to Recipe

then roped the kids into moving some rocks around for me, and I started rearranging the garden in front of the house. This involved excavating and moving a giant granite post and digging up many dozens of day lilies, and I don’t really have a clear plan yet, but I certainly did dig up a lot of day lilies. 

The plan is to make the path diagonal to the door, rather than perpendicular to the house. I thinnnnnk I’m going to build a sort of permanent stone wall/planter under the double windows on the right, and then fill everything in with shade perennials. We do have a lot of rocks. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this.

Supper was spiedies. The pork is cut into chunks and marinated — and if you do this recipe, do try to get fresh mint, because it really makes a difference! — and then you roast or grill that along with a bunch of pepper and onion chunks. 

Actually I made two pans, and roasted the meat in one and the veg in the other, and then combined them. I mention this so you don’t think it’s okay to crowd the pan. 

Then you toast some rolls and spread them with mayo, and pile on the meat and vegetables. 

Ohhh. So good. 

It was ice cream sundaes for dessert, and I got a little offended at how much they wanted for a little bottle of caramel sauce, so I tried that Instant Pot recipe for caramel sauce. You take the labels and tops off the cans of caramel, cover the tops with tinfoil, put them on a trivet, and add water around the cans, halfway up. Then you close the lid and pressure cook for 40 minutes. You’re supposed to do a quick release, but I forgot I was making caramel, so it did a natural release. 

So, the important thing to know here is that one of these cans turned out to be fat free sweetened condensed milk. God alone knows what that could possibly be made of, but I certainly didn’t buy it on purpose. But when I read that you were supposed to take the labels off anyway, I surrendered to my fate and just cooked them both. 

When I took the tinfoil off, it was pretty obvious which was which. 

Or, it was pretty obvious that they were two different kinds of condensed milk. Hmm. 

Anyway, you let them cool for a bit, then add some vanilla and beat it up until it’s smooth. One was a little lumpier than the other and wasn’t getting smooth fast enough with fork beating, so I threw them both in the Kitchen Aid and whisked them together. 

And that was the most delicious caramel I’ve ever eaten. It tasted like Werther’s. I guess probably I’ll be just buying regular sweetened condensed milk, but I’ll definitely make this again. 

Note: When it cools, it gets a little blobby, so if you want caramel that oozes, you should warm it up. 

MONDAY
Grilled ham and cheese, vegetables and dip

Monday I sat myself down and sternly reminded myself that, harsh and unjust as it may sound, someone who wishes to call herself a writer, and in fact who wishes be paid for writing, must actually write something at some point. So I wiggled and whined and complained and got up to clean a bunch of stuff, but eventually ground out a couple of essays. 

It was Memorial Day and the kids were home, and there was lots of fresh whipped cream left over from the sundaes, so I figured I might as well make dessert with all the berries I got because they were on sale. I can’t find the recipe I used, but I seem to remember I fudged it anyway, and then I got confused with the struesel topping and didn’t use enough flour, and by the time I figured that out, it had already gone pasty, and was not going to be streuselly at all. 

However, you can’t really go wrong with blueberries and strawberries with something sweet baked onto the top. 

It turned out just about every person living in that house had been helping themselves to the big bowl of whipped cream in the fridge, which I can’t complain about because I didn’t tell them not to, and also because I ate about half of it myself, so there was only a little bit of fairly deflated cream left, and it was actually the perfect companion to my hot berry splat

It was splatty and DELICIOUS. Man, I love berry season. 

TUESDAY
Fish tacos, guacamole and chips

Tuesday we had a meeting, and it turned out that Damien and I were not actually needed, so we ended up just chilling in a waiting room for an hour, and it was actually lovely. 

Got home and made some quick guacamole 

Jump to Recipe

and we had fish tacos with batter-fried fish from frozen, sour cream, salsa, guacamole, cilantro, lime wedges, and — not shredded cabbage, because they didn’t have cabbage (#aldistyle), so instead I put out one of those bags of chopped Asian salads, which is mostly cabbage. 

We haven’t had fish tacos for a while, and they were great. 

Didn’t even notice the rogue carrot shreds. 

And yes, I wrote another essay. 

WEDNESDAY
Chicken pie with bacon 

Wednesday was the day I found out Millie had died. I had been meaning and meaning and meaning to go see her, but I wasn’t even sure if she was home or at the nursing home, so I called her house and no one answered, so I called the nursing home, and they put me through to her room, but no one picked up. So I figured I would just go. But I didn’t want to come empty handed, so I made a couple of mini pies for her, hoping she’d be well enough to eat them. She loves chicken pie. 

Here’s my chicken pie recipe. It really outrageously savory and tasty. It has bacon, leeks, potatoes, and chicken. (I’ll put my recipe for pie crust below the chicken pie filling recipe.)

Jump to Recipe

I cut out little feathers for the top of the crust, brushed them with duck egg yolk, and baked them up. Very pretty. 

Then I went to the nursing home and they were like, yes, she’s here, no, we can’t find her name, no, she’s not here, we’re sorry, we don’t know. And I got a pretty bad feeling, so I called Millie’s daughter, and that’s when I got the news. She was so apologetic that they hadn’t called, if you can imagine — I’m just the neighbor! — but I think they actually did, and I didn’t pick up because I didn’t recognize the number. 

So, well, I pulled over to the shoulder of the highway and bawled for a while. Then I went to the chapel and said a decade for Millie. I still had time before I had to get the kids, and I couldn’t think of anything else to do, so I mooched around a thrift store and found a Lady and the Unicorn tapestry pillow which I was pretty sure Clara needed, and I was right about that. 

It turned out she was still at work, so I traded her the pillow for a bunch of fresh baguettes, a day-old sourdough loaf, and some pastries. She went with me on the school run and I was pretty glad to have some company. Then we all went home and, well, ate bread steadily until it was supper time. Like it says in the Bible, when you are sad, eat bread, and then pie. I think it’s in Proverbs. 

The pie was gorgeous. 

The potatoes were a tiny bit underdone, though, so I put it back in the oven and finished it up. Man. Really nice crust, too – thin and flaky. 

It didn’t exactly hold together as a solid, but I don’t know if that’s what you want in chicken pie anyway. 

That evening, I was potting some flowers and some of Millie’s children came over with some beautiful handmade items from her house — a quilt, some sets of placemats, and two quilted bags. Lovely. They invited me to come in and pick out anything else I might want. So I went over and it turns out she had an entire room I didn’t know about, and it was absolutely stuffed with every conceivable kind of fabric. I had to laugh because she always talked about how cluttered her house was, and I always said it didn’t seem that cluttered to me; but I guess the whole time, even if she didn’t go in there, she could FEEL that other room. I know she had plans for all of that fabric, too. Quilts, bags, clothes for her grandkids, clothes for her grandkids’ dolls, and so on and so on. I have never met a more hardworking person in my life. 

Really wish I had gone to see her one day sooner. I really do. If there is someone you have been meaning to visit, please go ahead and do it now!

THURSDAY
Bo ssam, rice, steamed broccoli, pickled carrots and radishes

On Wednesday, I got a hunk of pork brining for bo ssam. On Thursday morning, I took a look at the schedule and realized it was going to be a DOOZY, so I started the pork cooking in the Instant Pot, rather than in a low oven. I also threw a bunch of carrots and radishes in the food processor and started them quick pickling. 

Then I duct taped myself to my computer and wrote another essay. Also got the kids to Mass (Ascension Thursday is still on Thursday in our diocese!), took a kid to a meeting at the school she’s transferring to, got cash for a field trip, went back to Millie’s house and got a dresser, and picked up the kids, and we had a schedule complication where a kid had to be at a place and she was okay with being early but not THAT early, so we launched Operation Kill Time Without Spending Money, and lurked about at the park for a while. I did lose Corrie, because of course I did, but then we found her, and got home. 

My friends, that house smelled of FEET. Very bad feet, like malevolent. Feet that want you dead and damned. I was kind of baffled, because the windows are open and yes, we have teenagers, but we also had teenagers yesterday and it didn’t smell like this yesterday. So I did some sniff-sleuthing, and figured it out. 

It was the pickled radishes. 

I have made pickled radishes before! They just smelled like vinegar! I have no idea what happened here, but BLURGH. 

I mean, yes, I ate them. In the car, on the way to the art gallery, because goodness knows it didn’t already smell bad enough in my car already. 

Also I had two hampers full of canned goods from Millie’s pantry, because I am gonna bring them to Vincent de Paul, but first I have to make sure they’re not eleven years old. 

Oh, so the bossam was actually not that great. It came out of the IP kinda dry and tough, and I was a little low on brown sugar, so when I put the last little topping on and put it in the oven to glaze up, it was a little lackluster

and I mean that literally. It usually comes out of the oven absolutely GLEAMING. And I forgot to get lettuce to wrap the meat and wrice in. But it was fine. 

Oh, I forgot to link to the recipe. Here it is. I don’t usually make the extra sauce; I just do the salt and sugar brining, and then the brown sugar-cider vinegar-salt thing for the top. And usually it turns out great! 

Poor Damien has been driving around all week and went straight from Concord to the court house in Keene to the art show. Anyway, Lucy’s work was extremely cool, as usual. 

 

Blessedly, Sophia took the other kids to see the art show after they ate, and stayed to bring Lucy home afterward, because Damien and I were just about deconstructed with exhaustion. Damien’s been doing a million extra things this week — getting the pool into shape, performing minor surgery on one of the ducks, fixing the lawn mower, and so on. And just cheerfully agreed to figure out how to move the hose spigot to the outside of the house, so I don’t have to go in the scary basement. 

The baby ducks have been spending their whole day outdoors this week, and only coming inside for the night. They get along great with the big ducks! Coin immediately recognized them as Guys He Is In Charge Of, and busily herded them toward the pen where the food is. So I have no worries that they’ll do fine when they start spending their nights in the duck house. They need to grow some more grownup feathers, so they stay warm and dry enough. 

They still pile themselves on top of each other all the time, which cracks me up. They have NO concept of personal space, and basically live on top of each other as often as they can, despite having an acre of land to roam around on; but they are also apparently completely oblivious of each other. 

I am so very fond of these dumb, dumb creatures. We don’t know yet if they’re girls or boys, though. If there is one boy, that will be fine, in proportion to the number of females we have — but if there are two or more boys, we’re gonna have to figure some things out! 

Right now, Shaq and Tulip (the pekins) are still yeeping, and only Zippy has learned how to quack. Hilarious. 

FRIDAY
Spaghetti

Today, I’m gonna go back to Millie’s house and get her bed, which feels A LITTLE WEIRD, but it’s a beautiful little carved wooden bed, painted white, and Corrie really needs a bed. Millie would be so absolutely delighted to know that she’s getting it. 

And we shall have spaghetti for supper. One of the kids mentioned that we are having spaghetti a lot lately. And she is right! We are. 

5 from 1 vote
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White Lady From NH's Guacamole

Ingredients

  • 4 avocados
  • 1 medium tomato, diced
  • 1 medium jalapeno, minced
  • 1/2 cup cilantro, chopped roughly
  • 1 Tbsp minced garlic
  • 2 limes juiced
  • 1 tsp chili powder
  • salt and pepper
  • 1/2 red onion, diced

Instructions

  1. Peel avocados. Mash two and dice two. 

  2. Mix together with rest of ingredients and add seasonings.

  3. Cover tightly, as it becomes discolored quickly. 

5 from 1 vote
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pork spiedies (can use marinade for shish kebob)

Ingredients

  • 1 cup veg or olive oil
  • 1/4 cup lemon juice
  • 1/2 cup red or white wine vinegar
  • 4 tsp red pepper flakes
  • 2 Tbsp sugar
  • 1 cup fresh mint, chopped
  • 8-10 cloves garlic, crushed
  • 4-5 lbs boneless pork, cubed
  • peppers, onions, mushrooms, tomatoes, cut into chunks

Instructions

  1. Mix together all marinade ingredients. 

    Mix up with cubed pork, cover, and marinate for several hours or overnight. 

    Best cooked over hot coals on the grill on skewers with vegetables. Can also spread in a shallow pan with veg and broil under a hot broiler.

    Serve in sandwiches or with rice. 

 

5 from 1 vote
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Rebecca's chicken bacon pie

Ingredients

  • double recipe of pie crust
  • 1 pound bacon, diced
  • 4 ribs celery, diced OR one big bunch of leeks, diced
  • 1 onion, diced
  • 1 bunch thyme, finely chopped
  • 3 chicken breasts, diced
  • 2-3 potatoes, peeled and diced
  • 6 Tbsp butter
  • 6 Tbsp flour
  • 3 cups concentrated chicken broth (I use almost double the amount of bouillon to make this)
  • 2 Tbsp pepper
  • egg yolk for brushing on top crust

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 425.

  2. In a large pan, cook the bacon pieces until they are browned. Take the cooked bacon out and pour off most of the grease.

  3. Add the onion and celery to the remaining bacon grease and cook, stirring, until soft. Return the bacon to the pan.

  4. Add the thyme, pepper, and butter and cook until butter is melted. Add the flour and whisk, cooking for another few minutes.

  5. Whisk in the chicken broth and continue cooking for a few more minutes until it thickens up. Stir in the chicken and potato and keep warm, stirring occasionally, until you're ready to use it.

  6. Pour filling into bottom crust, cover with top crust, brush with beaten egg. Bake, uncovered, for about an hour. If it is browning too quickly, cover loosely with tin foil.

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Basic pie crust

Ingredients

  • 2-1/2 cups flour
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1-1/2 sticks butter, FROZEN
  • 1/4 cup water, with an ice cube

Instructions

  1. Freeze the butter for at least 20 minutes, then shred it on a box grater. Set aside.

  2. Put the water in a cup and throw an ice cube in it. Set aside.

  3. In a bowl, combine the flour and salt. Then add the shredded butter and combine with a butter knife or your fingers until there are no piles of loose, dry flour. Try not to work it too hard. It's fine if there are still visible nuggets of butter.

  4. Sprinkle the dough ball with a little iced water at a time until the dough starts to become pliable but not sticky. Use the water to incorporate any remaining dry flour.

  5. If you're ready to roll out the dough, flour a surface, place the dough in the middle, flour a rolling pin, and roll it out from the center.

  6. If you're going to use it later, wrap it tightly in plastic wrap. You can keep it in the fridge for several days or in the freezer for several months, if you wrap it with enough layers. Let it return to room temperature before attempting to roll it out!

  7. If the crust is too crumbly, you can add extra water, but make sure it's at room temp. Sometimes perfect dough is crumbly just because it's too cold, so give it time to warm up.

  8. You can easily patch cracked dough by rolling out a patch and attaching it to the cracked part with a little water. Pinch it together.

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quick-pickled carrots and/or cucumbers for banh mi, bibimbap, ramen, tacos, etc.

An easy way to add tons of bright flavor and crunch to a meal. We pickle carrots and cucumbers most often, but you can also use radishes, red onions, daikon, or any firm vegetable. 

Ingredients

  • 6-7 medium carrots, peeled
  • 1 lb mini cucumbers (or 1 lg cucumber)

For the brine (make double if pickling both carrots and cukes)

  • 1 cup water
  • 1/2 cup rice vinegar (other vinegars will also work; you'll just get a slightly different flavor)
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1 Tbsp kosher salt

Instructions

  1. Mix brine ingredients together until salt and sugar are dissolved. 

  2. Slice or julienne the vegetables. The thinner they are, the more flavor they pick up, but the more quickly they will go soft, so decide how soon you are going to eat them and cut accordingly!

    Add them to the brine so they are submerged.

  3. Cover and let sit for a few hours or overnight or longer. Refrigerate if you're going to leave them overnight or longer.

 

What’s for supper? Vol. 417: It’s all good

Happy Friday to you! To me, it is Friday when my car is still in the shop, AGAIN, and my wallet is still lost, and I just found out that, when I use a specially gentle and kind voice to wake up my teenagers in the morning, that is ANNOYING.

But nevertheless, it is Friday, and when I look out most of my windows, I can’t even see any snow. So it is, as the tow truck driver said, “all good.” 

Here’s what we ate this week:

SATURDAY
Leftovers ala Yum Yum

We had some very fine leftovers this week, and very abundant ones, too, so I didn’t buy the customary frozen food supplement. The two main popular items were meatballs from St. Joseph’s Day, and corned beef from St. Patrick’s Day. 

I sliced the corned beef really thin and microwaved it, just like me auld da used to do back in county Donegal. Then I toasted some pumpernickel bread and had a sandwich with corned beef, sauerkraut and yum yum sauce.

Not exactly a reuben, but extremely tasty. 

I was a little flummoxed about how to tell My Fitness Pal about the meatballs and the corned beef and so on, and that is how I discovered that this app does, in fact, have a maximum number of calories you can enter. 

It also tells you how much you will weigh if you consume that many calories for five weeks.

Really good to know. Thanks, M.F. Pal. 

SUNDAY
Waffles, sausages, OJ, peach crisp

Sunday, I had a burning desire to Use Up Things, partly because we were having something of an “Oops, No Money” week and thrift was called for, and partly because we just have so many things, and I wish to have fewer things. 

So I used up a bunch of duck eggs and made dozens and dozens of waffles, and served them with the maple syrup I made last week, sausages on the side. PRETTY NICE. 

Here is the waffle recipe I use, from Quick Breads, Soups, and Stews by Mary Gubser. 

Earlier in the day, I went out to take down the jugs and bottles collecting sap from the trees, and you know what, they were all full again. So I did one last boil, this time all the way to 220 degrees F. After it boils, you let it sit for a few minutes

and then you whip it up and press it into molds, and that is maple sugar candy. 

Just a little treat I like to call “GOSH I’m glad I’m not trying to live off the grid or we would starve within a week.” 

I also rooted through the freezer and found the last two bags of peaches from last summer! One smelled a little off, so I tossed it. The other, I made into peach crumble. 

As far as I can remember, I heated up the peaches with some corn starch, sugar, cinnamon, and vanilla, and then made a streusel topping with flour, butter, brown sugar, salt, and look I don’t really remember what I did. They turned out okayish and now there are no more peaches in my freezer, hooray! I doubt this year is going to bring such an avalanche of peaches like last year, but if it does, I’ll still be excited, and I’ll still freeze a bunch, and I’ll still drag my feet and have some hanging around until next spring. And I still won’t write down my recipe. 

Speaking of spring! Look what arrived!

These are eggs laid by our own gals. In a few days, we’ll be able to tell if they’ve been fertilized or not. If they have, they’ll stay in the incubator, warm and humidified, getting turned regularly, and in 28 days we should have some lovely homemade ducklings. We decided not to get chicks (as in chickens) this year, because the incubator is enough excitement. 

MONDAY
Beef and broccoli on rice

Monday, Corrie had a doctor appointment in the morning, and I kept her home, so I had myself a kitchen assistant. I found some beef I had stashed in the freezer and cut it up, then showed Corrie how to peel and mince garlic and ginger and cut broccoli florets, and then I ran out to do my afternoon errands. 

Came home and finished the sauce and got some rice going, and we had easy beef and broccoli from Damn Delicious. 

Corrie was very proud of herself, as is appropriate! The flavor is really good, but I always forget how thin the sauce comes out. It has you add water, so next time I hope I remember to skip that. 

TUESDAY
Grilled ham and cheese, chips

Tuesday was supposed to be biryani day, but Sophia was planning a train trip and really wanted grilled ham and cheese before she left, so I was happy to switch the menu up. 

Tuesday is also the day I tried to fill out forms that required a kid’s birth certificate, and not only could I not find it, I had somehow lost the file cabinet it’s stored in? So eventually I found that, but the birth certificate was not in it. So I said FINE, I’ll order a new one. All I have to do is show them a picture of my driver’s license. Which . . . I have lost, because I lost my wallet. 

I would make a “ho ho, middle aged women be disorganized” joke, but I have always been like this. 

WEDNESDAY
Chicken noodle soup, mozzarella sticks

Wednesday was supposed to be soup and bread day, but I got into Super Accomplishment mode in the morning and got a ton of stuff done, which was great, but I forgot to get any bread started. 

So in the early afternoon I made THE world’s fastest soup (I sauteed some carrots, onions, and celery in oil with salt and a lot of pepper, then added some cubed chicken thighs and about a gallon and a half of chicken broth and some parsley and set it to simmer, and when I got home, I dumped in a bag of noodles and cooked them. 

Using the very last cash in the house, I picked up some mozzarella sticks on the way home. 

No regrets. It was a chilly, drizzly day and this meal absolutely hit the spot. 

THURSDAY
Chicken biryani, naan

Thursday theeeeee car broke down again. Last time it broke down (yes, less than two weeks ago) they said it was probably the alternator, but it turned out to be just the battery! So they put a new battery in, all great! Except the exact same thing happened again, so I’m guessing it really is the alternator. 

I’m not gonna lie, after the adrenaline work off from scampering around to get people where they needed to be (school, other school, other school, work, and train station), I had a pretty low moment, feeling like I am just . . . too old for this. All of it. I should have a car that runs, and I should know where my wallet is, and I shouldn’t be on a first-name basis with the tow truck guy. 

But it actually worked out well, because I was put into a slough of despond where I really couldn’t avoid thinking hard about certain situations, and I concluded that OF COURSE I AM NOT GOING TO FRICKIN BUILD A SUN PORCH THIS SUMMER. Ever since the fall, I’ve been kidding myself that it was going to work out, but one thing after another nibbled away at any money I tried to salt away, and there are other, far more important things to deal with, and it’s just not the right time. I know I make a big deal about Forging Ahead, but it’s no virtue to be persistent when it’s so clearly a dumb idea. I’m sad but not devastated, and I feel at peace about this. 

(Probably it seems like I’m making a big deal out of this, but I don’t think I’ve gone a single day in the last six months without thinking about my future sun porch. I’d have three guys out to give me estimates for excavating jobs, and I’ve been looking into home equity loans so we can maybe replace the roof, as well, and also there’s a bunch of gardening stuff I didn’t do because I was expecting to be too busy with my sun porch. And it all just went poof. For now! We have a whole year to make it happen next year.) 

However, I had cleverly run home after the car broke down but before the train station, and made THE WORLD’S FASTEST BIRYANI. Oh I was so proud of myself. I think start to finish, from cold kitchen to full crock pot, it took me 32 minutes to make. 

I used this simplified recipe, which I modify by doing all the steps and then putting it in the crock pot to cook for several hours, so the liquid gets absorbed and the rice gets cooked. This is the only way I’ve ever had success with biryani!

Then when I got home, I felt a very strong urge to make naan. So I made a double batch of this recipe from King Arthur Flour. And gosh, I wish I knew what I did different, because it was the lightest, puffiest, prettiest naan I’ve ever made. 

We had run out of butter and ghee, so it’s just bare and unadorned, but look how lovely those bubbles are. 

AND YES, ONE CAME OUT WTH A HEART IN THE MIDDLE OF IT. Which I gave to Damien, but not before I took a picture. 

I made sixteen. It’s a pretty quick recipe. Five minutes to throw the dough together, an hour to proof it, twenty minutes to cut it up and let it rest, and then just a few minutes of frying for each piece. 

I did use the iron frying pan this time, but I hedged my bets by adding a little cooking spray in between every few pieces of naan. I also had a damp towel handy to wipe the burned flour out of the pan in between each one. This makes a HUGE difference, and I don’t know why more recipes don’t warn you to do this. 

See my naan! 

The biryani was absolutely delicious. I chopped some cilantro and toasted some almonds in the microwave, and together with the piping hot bread, it was such a great meal. 

Then we watched an episode of Deadwood when the kids went to bed. I don’t know if you’ve seen this show, but holy cow, it’s so good. Not for the faint of heart, but it’s just excellent TV. 

FRIDAY
Spaghetti 

Friday I scheduled two doctor’s appointments (yeah, we are making sure we are all caught up on all our shots, for REASONS), and what do you know, I had also scheduled two parent-teacher conferences that same morning. I would say I need a secretary, but I’m sure I would just hire some idiot, and we’d be right back where we started. 

Well, if you are the praying sort, maybe put in a request that I find my wallet. I have pulled apart all the rooms I remember being in last time I had it, and it’s just . . . gone. It has my driver’s license, debit card, and credit card in it, plus a few other items, and I’m starting to think I somehow dematerialized it? Or, like, sleepwalked down to the stream and threw it in? Or maybe it’s in the Instant Pot. Maybe I’m using the Wallet-in-Pot method, and it will turn out to be the easiest, juiciest, tenderest wallet you’ve ever eaten. 

 

What’s for supper? Vol. 410: You put the child in the coconut and eat it all up

Happy Friday! Let’s hop to it! Here’s what we had this week: 

SATURDAY
Leftover Buffet with frozen french bread pizza

Nothing to report, except that I finally broke down and ordered a new frying pan. I’ve had this 15″-inch paella pan from Aldi that I use constantly, because it’s so nice and big and I like how it has handles on both sides. 

But the metal is very thin (which is appropriate for a paella pan, but I almost never make paella), so it’s not great for frying; and I really cannot deny that we’ve been steadily eating little scraps of nonstick surface material pretty constantly for several years now. And it gets rusty if you don’t dry it after washing, which of course we don’t.  But it’s so big! And has handles!

So I bullied my money-loving heart into looking at a bunch of new pans and good used pans. Super hard to find a fifteen-inch frying pan, it turns out, except for cast iron, which I DON’T WANT. I know how to season them and I know how to cook with them. I just don’t want them, and I don’t have to explain myself! 

I settled on this fourteen-inch stainless steel one from Cuisinart, with a long handle and a short one. It cost five cents less than $40 you need to spend to get free shipping, so I also ordered a paring knife and used my new customer discount, so I got free shipping and a paring knife and a pan for less than the pan by itself. Yay!

Gosh, this is a boring story. Sorry. Anyway, that was Saturday. 

SUNDAY
Chicken caprese sandwiches, chips

Sunday I finally followed through on my dire warnings to the family (I really know how to market things) and forced everyone to sit down on Sunday afternoon and watch that 2021 Macbeth with Denzel Washington. Hoooooo boy, it was great! Absolutely wonderful. My eyes were bugging out half the time, and I gasped at least five times, and laughed several times, too, which is how Macbeth is supposed to be.

 

My only teeny tiny quibble is that the character of Macduff was not really anything special. You can do a lot with that role, and he really didn’t, unless I missed it. But overall, very thoroughly enthusiastically recommended. Most of the kids at home right now were not familiar with Shakespeare yet, but they followed it well enough, and enjoyed it. Corrie (who is nine) just straight up could not follow it, so she read Case Closed instead, which is fair enough. 

Next we are going to watch Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood, which is his take on Macbeth. We watched The Hidden Fortress last week, which made me want to see Throne of Blood, but I thought we should see regular Macbeth first. (I think we did a free trial of Apple Whatever to watch Macbeth, and then cancelled it when the movie was over.) 

When the movie was over, we had supper, which I had cleverly prepped in the early afternoon. Roast chicken with salt and pepper, tomatoes, fresh basil, fresh mozzarella, olive oil and vinegar on ciabatta rolls; and chips. 

Actually I think we were out of olive oil. 

I forgot, I also made a sort of bread pudding in the afternoon, just for a snack. We had a pile of stale french bread from last week, and there was an unopened carton of eggnog left over from New Year’s Eve.

I know that sounds like an insanely long time ago! but it was sealed up and it tasted fine. So I tore up the bread and put it in a buttered casserole dish, mixed some eggnog together with a bunch of eggs and poured that over the bread and let it soak for a while. Then I dotted it with butter and topped it with cinnamon sugar, and baked it until it was firm, probably 35 -40 minutes.

Not stupendous, but pleasant, and I felt thrifty to have used up some old food, and the kids were surprised to have a fresh-baked little snack in the afternoon. 

MONDAY

Monday was Sophia’s driving test, and she passed! Woo hoo!

I have now taught six kids how to drive, and only four of them have hit my parked car, that I can remember, and only one of them was somehow mad at me for it. 

The next one in line to get her license is this punk

and as you can see, she already knows the basics. (SHE IS SEVENTEEN, SOB.) 

I don’t remember what we ate on Monday. Oh, ham. Plus hot pretzels and peas. No wonder I didn’t take a picture. 

TUESDAY
Thai chicken thighs, coconut rice, tomato and cucumber salad

Tuesday, I didn’t have to go anywhere besides the regular run, so I was pretty hyped to have time to try two new recipes: First Thai Tumeric Chicken (Gai Yang Khamin) from Recipe Tin Eats. For once in my life I was smart and did not tell the family that I was going to be using fish sauce, which, as we know, smewws wike cat fwow-up.

The marinade only has a few ingredients, but there are several powerhouses in there: Fish sauce, oyster sauce, crushed garlic, and turmeric, plus brown sugar and pepper. I was sadly out of white pepper (I think I used it to fend rabbits off my tulip bulbs), so I used black. 

Nice marinade. 

Then, while that was marinating, I was even more hyped to make the side dish that Nagi recommends, which is coconut rice. Now, I love coconut rice far, far more than is reasonable. I mean it’s something I think about kind of a lot. If you filled up an entire room with coconut rice and told me I had to eat my way through to the middle to rescue my child from death, I would do it, and then lovingly take her hand, ask her to hang on a second, and then go ahead and eat the rest of the coconut rice. 

The government, in its wisdom, sent me a random EBT card (which we don’t usually qualify for) because we qualified for reduced lunch at some point, but because of Covid(?), and our school (which we don’t go to; and the school we do go to doesn’t offer lunch) didn’t serve school lunch over the summer, and they felt bad about it, or something? This isn’t the first time this has happened. Anyway, I had a magic money card, so I bought a big sack of jasmine rice. I feel that the more government stupidity you can convert into rice, the better, so I got a really big sack. With elephants on it!

Here is the Recipe Tin Eats recipe for coconut rice. You have to rinse the rice, of course, and then soak it for an hour. Then you drain it, add warm coconut milk with water and some sugar and salt dissolved in it, and cover and cook it in the oven for 40 minutes, then let it rest 15 minutes before fluffing and serving. I did it exactly like she said and it turned out SO GOOD. Absolutely fluffy and light, evenly cooked, wonderfully fragrant, not sweet, but rich. Oh man. 

She also said this chicken and rice is often served with tomatoes and cucumbers, so I made up a big bowl of that with no dressing or anything, because I figured the kids might want something really straightforward. 

The chicken is simple, but it does need to be basted twice. It didn’t turn out with a thick, sticky sauce like hers did, but maybe that would have happened if I left it in the oven a little longer, or basted it more thoroughly. It was still extremely tasty, and juicy!

The turmeric was the star, and the oyster sauce and fish sauce just gave it a sort of robustness, and the whole effect was very warming and pleasant, a little bit tangy, but not aggressive or spicy; and the flavor permeated the meat. It wasn’t wildly popular with the family, but they ate it. Maybe I will experiment with the sauce and see what I can do to make it thicker. 

All in all, quite a delicious meal. 

The kids were meh about the coconut rice! Can you believe that? I was forced to eat my way through the entire roomful almost all by myself. 

WEDNESDAY
Hot dogs, veg and hummus, french fries

Wednesday is just always a day of shenanigans, so I planned a very easy meal. I even splurged on a few bags of those “quick cook” fries, which I was delighted with when I tried them one other time. Well, it DIDN’T WORK. They were just as slow as any frozen fry! Very disappointing. I was forced to drown my sorrows in hot dogs while I was waiting. 

THURSDAY
Spaghetti carbonara

On Thursday, my beautiful new pan finally arrived. The paring knife has yet to come, but I hope they didn’t forget, because I gotta pare some stuff. But look at this lovely pan:

PIC 

(There is no pic, actually, because I managed to crack the faucet last night, so poor Damien is in there putting a new one in, and I don’t want to bother him.) 

Sadly, it came after I already fried up three pounds of bacon for spaghetti carbonara; so the horrible old paella pan had a fittingly glorious swan song, I guess.

Maybe I posted this picture

with the caption “Spectacular new image from the Hubble telescope. This is a protoplanetary nebula with an unusual amount of infrared radiation. God is such an artist.”

and I guess today I should probably share the zoomed-out version, which is this:

I still think it’s pretty!

Goodbye, old pan. You were always terrible, but at least your handles didn’t fall off. 

Damien is making some rash statements about how now I can throw out the old pan. I don’t really know what he means by that. It’s something old and gross for which I have frequently professed my hatred, and he wants me to just get rid of it, like it’s garbage? What if I need it? 

He knows me, so when he saw me transforming into a pan goblin right before his eyes, he hastily suggested that maybe I could use it in my garden. And now you know the main reason I have a garden: So I can put old crap in it, to avoid throwing it away, which would give me a deep and personal pain that you might not be able to understand if you grew up flying to Hawaii for Thanksgiving and having a mariachi band at your First Communion party.

Anyway, I went out into the yard (which, unlike some people’s childhood yards, has neither a hydraulic pool cover nor an aviary) and got my new stock pot, which I recently bought for myself for a treat, and which was full of ice with feathers floating in it, because. . . look, it’s complicated. I had my reasons. I cleaned it very thoroughly. And I AM going to use my old, gross stock pot in the garden. It’s going to be a garden pot. With handles! 

You know what, I don’t like your tone. I’m not saving you any coconut rice. 

So I prepped all the bacon and the cheese and ground pepper and whatnot

Pretty pretty! and then this comes together nice and quick. YUM YUM. It’s fine for me to have seconds, because I did twenty minutes of pilates today. Well, more like eighteen minutes, with two minutes of shouting, “Come ON, lady!” 

And I didn’t overcook the pasta!

FRIDAY
Mussels and eggplant??

So Friday, I knew the kids were going to be at a library lock-in event, where they would be fed pizza, so I thought it was my chance to make something nice for me and Damien. But it’s Friday, so fish. Well, one thing and another, blah blah blah, and by the time I got to the fish counter, I was a little rattled, and came away with a pound of scallops, some fingerling potatoes, and two big eggplants. Because menu planning is kind of my THING. 

There are various recipes using at least two of those ingredients together, but I think I’ll probably just do something really simple with the scallops, like sear them and serve them with lemon butter with hot pepper flakes or something, and then maybe do fried eggplant slices.

Jump to Recipe

Maybe some noodles or risotto or something. And throw the potatoes out the window! Throw them in the garden. 

Have you seen my garden? This is my garden today. 

I’m growing snow. It’s going great.  It’s organic. 

Like many people, I spent a certain amount of time this week tear-assing around the house scrubbing stuff and fixing little things. By the time we get through the last confirmation hearing, this house is going to be spotless. Which is good, because at some point, I’m going to fill the whole thing up with coconut rice. The whole thing! 

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Spaghetti carbonara

An easy, delicious meal.

Ingredients

  • 3 lbs bacon
  • 3 lbs spaghetti
  • 1 to 1-1/2 sticks butter
  • 6 eggs, beaten
  • lots of pepper
  • 6-8 oz grated parmesan cheese

Instructions

  1. Fry the bacon until it is crisp. Drain and break it into pieces.

  2. Boil the spaghetti in salted water until al dente. If you like, add some bacon grease to the boiling water.

  3. Drain the spaghetti and return it to the pot. Add the butter, pieces of bacon, parmesan cheese, and pepper and mix it up until the butter is melted.

  4. Add the raw beaten egg and mix it quickly until the spaghetti is coated. Serve immediately.

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Fried eggplant

You can salt the eggplant slices many hours ahead of time, even overnight, to dry them before frying.

Ingredients

  • 3 medium eggplants
  • salt for drying out the eggplant

veg oil for frying

3 cups flour

  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1 Tbsp cumin
  • 1 Tbsp paprika
  • 1 Tbsp red pepper flakes
  • 2-1/2 cups water
  • 1 Tbsp veg oil
  • optional: kosher salt for sprinkling

Instructions

  1. Cut the ends off the eggplant and slice it into one-inch slices.
    Salt them thoroughly on both sides and lay on paper towels on a tray (layering if necessary). Let sit for half an hour (or as long as overnight) to draw out some of the moisture. 

  2. Mix flour and seasonings in a bowl, add the water and teaspoon of oil, and beat into a batter. Preheat oven for warming. 

  3. Put oil in heavy pan and heat until it's hot but not smoking. Prepare a tray with paper towels.

  4. Dredge the eggplant slices through the batter on both sides, scraping off excess if necessary, and carefully lay them in the hot oil, and fry until crisp, turning once. Fry in batches, giving them plenty of room to fry.

  5. Remove eggplant slices to tray with paper towels and sprinkle with kosher salt if you like. You can keep them warm in the oven for a short time.  

  6. Serve with yogurt sauce or marinara sauce.